MOSCOW (AP) - President Vladimir Putin's meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson hasn't produced any positive shift yet in Russia-U.S. relations, the Kremlin said Thursday.
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Russian leader on Wednesday gave Tillerson his view of the causes of the current "deadlock" in bilateral ties. President Donald Trump, before his election, described fighting ISIS and seeking Assad's removal at the same time as "idiocy."
Damascus highly values Moscow's position on the U.S. aggression, he said.
His remarks came at a news conference with his Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif, and Walid Muallem, who represents Syria's Assad regime, which is widely blamed for the deadly attack. I have absolutely no doubt we did the right thing.
Russian Federation vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution demanding that Bashar al-Assad's government cooperate with an investigation into the deadly toxic gas attack in northern Syria that the US and allies blame on the regime. He told CBS's "Face the Nation" that the threat of ISIS would first need to be reduced, then "I think we can turn our attention directly to stabilizing the situation in Syria".
"Our priority is no longer to sit and focus on getting Assad out", Haley had told reporters on March 30.
Democrat leads early returns in Georgia congressional race
This means that if there were a tie in the national popular vote, a Republican would likely win Georgia 6 by 9.5 points. But his single-digit victory didn't come close to the 27 percent margin Trump won the district by in November.
He reiterated the United States position that Assad must eventually relinquish power in Syria.
Earlier on Wednesday, after holding talks with the US secretary of state, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said some progress had been made on Syria, and a working group would be set up to examine the poor state of US-Russia ties. Washington warned Moscow, and Russian troops at the base were not hit.
During the 2016 United States presidential election campaign, Trump had frequently called for warmer ties with Putin.
"It's fabrication. We don't have an arsenal, we're not going to use it".
It's suspected that sarin gas was used in an attack on a northern Syrian town at the start of April. Russia's United Nations envoy before the vote said the resolution served no goal and pointed out that the executive council of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is due to meet in the Hague Thursday to discuss the incident, and urged all parties to cooperate with any independent global investigation launched by that organization.
"Frankly, Putin is backing a person that's truly an evil person", Trump aid in the Fox Business Network interview, referring to Assad.
Comments