Trump says US-Russia relations "may be at an all-time low"

Mr Trump said the US is "not getting along with Russia at all" and the US-Russia relationship may be at at an "all-time low".

The Kremlin, which has supported Assad since the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011, has backed up the Syrian leader, claiming he was not responsible for the attack. The statement was made soon after Russian President Vladimir Putin gave the same assessment earlier in the day.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov shakes hands with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson during a news conference following their talks in Moscow, Russia, April 12, 2017.

Tillerson and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, spoke by phone on Saturday, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry, which said the United States had initiated the call.

Dmitry Peskov on Thursday said that the tone of the meeting had been "fairly constructive". He added there was no talk Wednesday about a possible Trump-Putin meeting.

Earlier in an interview broadcast on Wednesday before the meeting with Tillerson, Putin said mutual trust between Russian Federation and the U.S., especially on the military level, had eroded in the first few months of Trump's presidency.

Tillerson did raise the prospect of criminal proceedings at some point over the attack, including against Assad himself, but warned there were be major legal obstacles to this. Putin's comments suggest Russian Federation had high hopes for rapprochement with Trump, and the dramatic reverse by the new administration had badly eroded Russia's trust in anything they say.

Lavrov greeted Tillerson with unusually icy remarks, denouncing the missile strike on Syria as illegal and accusing Washington of behaving unpredictably.

Over 20 UNSC resolutions on Syria have been passed, most with unanimous backing, but if one of the five permanent members of the UNSC vetoes a draft resolution, it automatically fails.

Tillerson said both nations would set up a "working group" to seek ways to ease tensions.

He said the two sides agreed on the need to keep open lines of communication between Moscow and Washington.

While the USA says not all available intelligence has been released to protect its sources and the methods, it affirms that sarin gas was released from a pipe dropped from the air.

Tillerson noted the low level of trust between the two countries. "The world's two foremost nuclear powers can not have this kind of relationship".

Moscow's hostility to Trump administration figures is a sharp change from a year ago, when Putin hailed Trump as a strong figure and Russian state television was often full of effusive praise for him. "I said it [Nato] was obsolete".

Mr Trump, who strongly criticised the transatlantic alliance - which was formed in 1949 to counter the threat of the Soviet Union - during his election campaign, underlined the importance of the organisation during a press conference with Mr Stoltenberg.

But the civil war in Syria has driven a wedge between Moscow and Washington, upending what many in Russian Federation hoped would be a transformation in relations, which reached a post-Cold War low under Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama.

Haley added that U.S. intelligence showed there was no doubt the Syrian regime was behind the chemical attack.

In a positive development, Russian Federation agreed to consider reopening lines of communication over movements across Syrian airspace, an arrangement that had been cancelled by Moscow in retaliation for last week's missile air strikes by the USA in Syrian air space. "This has built for a long period of time, but we'll see what happens".

"Let us view this moment of crisis - and it is a moment of crisis - as a watershed and an opportunity for a new level of seriousness in the search for a political solution", said De Mistura.

Until the chemical attack, the Trump administration had sought to step back from the USA position that Assad should leave power.

"Are we insisting on it? No". Despite the dreary outlook, Trump said that he heard that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had a positive meeting with Russian officials.

The Wall Street Journal cited Trump as saying that Assad's use of chemical weapons again would elicit another military response, but he also said he would not intervene in depth in the conflict.

According to the foreign minister, Damascus does not believe that the West will agree for conduction of an Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) inspection regarding the suspected chemical attack in Syria's Idlib. He's standing behind the Assad regime.

Earlier on Wednesday Tillerson had a similar tone after an nearly two-hour meeting with Putin, saying the two countries had reached a "low point" in relations. However, this appears impossible with the recent confrontations between the countries over Syria, and the ongoing investigations of Russia's alleged interference in the USA presidential elections.