In russiaamerica relations especially at the military level, under the administration of donald trump has not improved, but rather worsened. He is saying this as the u. S. Secretary of state Rex Tillerson is behind closed doors right now meeting with his russian counterpart, talk object about their differences, differences right now that seem as big as black and white. Michelle kazinski is in moscow for moderating niece talks, michelle, what have you learned . Reporter hi, you know this was always going to be an extremely difficult meeting. But what was unusual was to see that tension on full display even before it started. You know, before this meeting, they usually have a photo op. There are pleasantries exchanged or at least cordialitys. But in this case the Russian Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov Just Launched right into it. With his sharp criticism of u. S. Strikes on syria, saying theyre a violation of International Law and cant happen again. He talked about the fact that there is
Of poisonous substances. I do apologize for such a long commentary but id like to stress here that we are absolutely 100 convinced that this will mean they simply dont want to establish the truth and we will insist on it. Josh letterman with the associated press. Thank you. Secretary tillerson, i want to ask you about your conversations with president putin about syria. You have predicted that assad will leave power through a political transition. How will you compel assad to participate in a political transition that leads to his own ouster. Our war crimes charges on the table and how long will the United States meet for russia to come around . And foreign minister lavrov, if i may, your government and the United States government seem to be miles apart on the syria issue, on ukraine and other issues. Did you feel that you cleared up any of those issues you mentioned earlier today since youve had those discussions with secretary tillerson . We did discuss at length the future role for
confirmed that president putin said that they would re-establish their deconfliction which allows operations in and over the skies of syria without running into each other deliberately, provocatively or anything such as that. that seems to be taken care of. lau lavrov says we have instructed channels to have people who can talk to each other. he said without emotion. you know, to take care of any issues that arise before they become big and unmanageable. so that sort of mini red line telephone between the two has been established. then on and on and on the differences about whether they hold or believe that assad used that chemical weapons and if you heard tillerson say, we have proof that assad not only prepared and conducted that attack, he again said it was