Because somehow the rule of law doesnt uphold to him we believe this News Conference to go live to the Us State Department for a joint News Conference mike pompeo and the Russian Foreign minister, surrogate laptop. Live coverage on cspan2. Good afternoon, welcome. Welcome surrogate. Before i recap the meeting that i had with foreign minister laptop and his team, i want to note that recently the trumpet ministration has taken action for human rights violators, i mentioned in my International Human rights speech which we celebrate today and these actions extend from the ministration commitment old individuals accountable for gross human rights is abuses. Ill speak more about that tomorrow area now turning to our meeting. Last may at President Trumps request i made a trip to russia to meet with president putin. The reason was pretty straightforward. We should have a better relationship. The United States andrussia than we had the last few years and weve been working on that. Our bilateral ties are of course complicated. We cooperate in some areas and other places we compete. Over the course of my visit mister laptop and i agreed to continue the hard work that diplomats engage in. He agreed to keep our lines of fumigation open and keep our conversations candid as well. Our talks today continue that. We touched on counterterrorism, counter narcotics. Our intelligence and Law Enforcement areas in a daily basis, we will keep doing so. I aim to make that cooperation more refined and better. We are committed to working through Un Security Council resolution 2254 to find a political solution to the fright crisis in syria. I think we agree theres no military solution and we both want to see that syria never again becomes a safe haven for isis and other terrorist groups and that same thing goes for afghanistan and we talked about the cooperation countries have had on the issue that faces us in afghanistan. Today too we agreed on the final fully verified the Nuclear Reservation of north korea as our joint objective. I raised the importance of sanctions enforcement with foreign minister laptop. These are all positive areas where our countries have cooperated and will continue to do so. There are other places where there are greater challenges. Venezuela is one of them. Below Nicholas Maduro hangs on, the deeper the misery of the venezuelan people. Weve asked the russian government to support the aspiration for democracy and the legitimacy of entering president juan guaido. Weve also spent a fair amount of time talking about ukraine. It was a major part of our conversation. Minister lavrov returned from paris where president putin and president zelensky had conversations. Im proud of what this administration has done in defense of that countrys sovereignty. I reiterated that foreign minister lavrov that ukraine belongs to ukraine and the conflict begins with adherence to commitments paid under the minsk agreements. President trump two is eager to pursue arms control with russia and china. We talked about that great length today. It has to be verifiable, enforceable and include all the partners who have the ability to impact Strategic Security around the world and then we had the chance to raise the issue of us citizens like paul welland who have been detained in russia ringing home our citizens abroad as soon as possible asone of President Trumps highest priorities. Then on the question of interference in our Domestic Affairs i was clear , unacceptable and i made our expectations of russia clear. Trumpet ministration will always work to protect the integrity of our elections. Should russia or any foreign actor take steps to undermine our democratic process we will take action in response. I finally want the russian people to know that the sanctions the United States as leverage on russian individuals and entities in no way targeted the russian people. We have no quarrel with lawabiding citizens and we will keep working on a diplomatic level to get this relationship right. I want to thank you surrogate for coming to washington. I look forward to our continuing conversations in the future. Thank you. Secretary, pompeo for the opportunity to make. Washington, we have accepted the invitation to visit the United States as their visit. After secretary pompeo traveled to the Russian Federation to sochi in may this year, there was a meeting with the president of the Russian Federation as well as our meaningful negotiations. We meet each other regularly and we regularly talk on the phone when necessary. Todays meeting has confirmed that it is useful to talk to each other. However, however difficult this relationship is and including the Global Affairs, talking to each other is always better than nottalking to each other. We have thoroughly bilateral situation in our affairs and we spoke about strategic stability arms control and we spoke frankly and businesslike. We are trying not only to hear, to listen to each other but to hear each other. Its an open secret that we have different views on Different Things and it would be nacve to think that overnight we would achieve on key issues. But i believe that was always so. More or less. There is no one hundred percent coincidence in positions and this promise is basically trying to find solutions that would not infringe on our vested interests of each other. But that would allow us to avoid conflict and rather promote constructive consolidation. Indeed we agree with our American Partners just like mike said. The situation to major in Nuclear Power is having populated differences that does not benefit our country. Or international community. That creates additional tension in global arenas in the world as a whole so we will continue our dialogue. We have to reciprocal intent to do that and we have opportunities to help normalize our bilateral situations. We understand that our joint work was hindered and continues to be hindered by the wave of suspicions and have overcome washington. We have highlighted once again that all speculations about our alleged interference in domestic processes in the United States are baseless. There are no facts that would support that and we did not see these facts. No one has given us this proof because it simply does not exist. Id like to remind you that when the first statements on this topicbegan , on the eve of president ial elections in 2016, we used the channels that existed back then between moscow and washington to get barack obama. We had asked many times our American Partners about the opportunities to deal with this suspicions that we expressed in october 2016. All the way up to President Trumps inauguration though there was no response. All appeals when we were saying if you suspect us of something, please put the backs down on the table and lets discuss it. Weve had numerous responses. So all that continued after the inauguration in the new administration and inauguration of President Trump. We suggested to our colleagues in order to dispel all suspicions, let us publish this. Correspondence running from october to november 2017 it would all become clear. Too many people. However, this administration, id like to repeat once again we are prepared to do that and to publish that the respondents that took place through thatchannel would clear many matters up. Nevertheless, we hope that the turbulence appeared out of thin air will die down just like in 1950s mccarthy there and there will be an opportunity to go back to more constructive operations. Incidentally we have offered multiple times and we are reminded about that today you put on our favor, mutual obligations on noninterference in Domestic Affairs of each other using the example of the exchange of personal notes took place in 1933. When diplomatic relations were reestablished to the United States and ussr. President roosevelt to justice. The american suggested and we agreed to dothat. To exchange letters between president roosevelt and our minister of foreign affairs. To put it on paper, this obligation not to allow for any interference inDomestic Affairs of each other. That was the initiative of the american side and we are prepared to do something similar. At this point in time, it is crucial. We agreed that it would be incorrect to put our relations on hold, our interaction on topical issues of modern times. You are prepared to do practical work. On a range of issues that are of mutual interest and we are prepared to do so with that level of intensity is convenient today for our American Partners. One of them, the central topics was stability. Weve directed our partners of the negative consequences of the us being out of the inf treaty and we have highlighted once again thatin these conditions after the treaty , we are interested in not letting this seem out of our devices and we suggested to the us and other partners and russia, that russia is nothing a moratorium on deploying such missiles and they will not be deployed up until then and in those regions. Up until the point where the similar systems, where american systems appear. That suggestion wasmade to our western partners including the us. Thesearch moratorium to become mutual. This offer remains on the table. We also spoke about the destiny of yet another tree that is still not expired and it will expire automatically in february 2021 area i mean the new start treaty. Russia has reconfirmed its offer already now to make a decision to extend this treaty. President putin has expressed this position and reconfirmed it in his public speech. We also are confirming our proposal to get again use this example of the ussr and us to make a statement about the inaccessibility of starting a nuclear war. This suggestion is also on the table. And for Global Affairs we spoke about the ukraine. I have briefed thoroughly and secretary pompeo and his allegation about yesterdays discussions in normandy about the decision to meet their issues yet to be settled in order to move onfully. Tort for observance is a principal importance that the outcome documents that the presence of russia, ukraine, france and germany have endorsed, we confirmed the inviolability of the agreement and require their service, that is 100percent. We also spoke about the need to continue our discussion about the path of how to overcome the crisis around Ukrainian Nuclear programs. We are well aware of our position and we believe it is necessary to do everything in our power to change jcp oa to ensure the peaceful nature of training in nuclear research. Actually we are very concerned about the situation in place in the persian gulf in the strait of hormuz. And we also promote all countries that want to ensure security and safety of navigation. With you, the russian coastal , we suggested to begin a dialogue about a system of proactivesecurity. At the level of political writers experts and scientific community, we with how the special seminary in moscow, many countries of the region including the arab states of the persian gulf that have taken part in that as well as a number of european scientists. We have also been advised us representatives and we hope that next time they will take part in such an event. As secretary pompeo has said, we spoke about the situation around venezuela. Russia consistently emotes the idea that it should be venezuelan led and the people should define the future and those prompt dialects that were first seen in the other format that unfortunately is in limbo right now. And that dialect we are seeing in the roundtable in the moderate opposition and the government would yield the necessary results and the crisis will be settled through peaceful means only. We spoke about the situation in the ukraine peninsula. We are promoting the nuclear rosacea in the nuclear peninsula again, that backdrop we see that we believe contacts between the us and prk are important. We hope that the position that we have also discussed with secretary pompeo, the position of russia and china, with coordinating our approaches china on these matters, that will be useful. In order for washington to respond to a future path pursuing a stalemate in the initiation process. We believe in order to get out of the same passc, is necessary to move forward and with reciprocal measures, measure for measure. And we are prepared to actively aid in order to overcome the current situation. We spoke about syria, resolution 2254. Encompasses all frameworks need to define the Movement Forward towards the settlement in all aspects. We have highlighted the need for the cooperation between russia and the us as well as others stakeholders in order to finally eliminate the response in syrian territory and others in the need for a sustainable constructive political process has begun in geneva. Within the Constitutional Committee where the syrian side has to agree about the future of their country. We spoke about other hotbeds of tension in the middle east and north of africa, there are many ofthem there. In particular i believe we have mutual interest about closer cooperation in the libyan settlement. We are cooperating on the situation around young and of course it is very important in keeping our icy and how israels settlement, that is apparently stalling and is in criticalcondition. We also spoke about our Bilateral Affairs as i have already said, that in 2018, and later at the meeting in june this year, we agreed about the whole number of specific steps and one thats one of the results, there was renewed counterterrorism dialogue to place one year ago and several rounds have already taken place. It allows for a more efficient against this scourge for russia the us as well as a Global Community area we accept that this format will remain an intensive exchange and now we have mister John Sullivan so theres a change of leadership there. He will be taking place and taking part in hearings about his appointment to the Russian Federation and you know him as a highly professional diplomat who will be happy to cooperate. Naturally we believe our ambassador to washington and also receive the same level of support. As for the economy, despite the sanctions that as it is wellknown, did not benefit anyone. The trade during President Trumps residing, we had accompanying growth from 20 billion that was president obamas level, now President Trump as of this year has helped reach the level of 27 billion thats around one third of the growth area that means more jobs in both countries and that means more profit for producers and i believe if this cooperation would gain additional interest, the results would be even more mutually beneficial. We have agreed to continue to find paths in order to alleviate certain triggers and bilateral sphere area therefore any situations with the rest of russian citizens abroad, these are situations where for our delegation, they take part in international events. Us territory as well as diplomats read as well as the situation with diplomatic property. We have agreed our deputies will continue a specific discussion of all these issues that we want to make them constructive and yield results. In the end id like to say that with all the difficulties and differences, there is Great Potential for cooperation in the economy and in other spheres as well and it is in the interest of both countries to tap into that potential fully and to develop our relations to the benefit of our countries and the whole Global Community. That is our intent and today we dont there was reciprocity and the same commitment on the american side. Im grateful to mike pompeo. Wed like to continue this dialogue and id like to invite him to visit russia when it ispossible, thank you. We will start with rich edmonds. That afternoon mister secretary. On north korea and your discussions with north korea, are you satisfied with russian and other countries sanctions enforcement and also within the past week north korea has warned of a Christmas Gift for the United States. Does the administration prepared or expected north korea to return to a more aggressive posture , perhaps once to terminatenegotiations. Prime minister, your discussions over paul leyland , our us and russia any closer to resolving the case . Is paul wheeling any closer to freedom and also Mister Foreign minister, do you believe that ukraine meddled in the us election in 2016 and is that specifically something you discussed with the secretary today . Thank you. With respect to north korea, we worked with the russians on enforcement. I told foreign minister lafon repeatedly i appreciateat the enforcement level that they have. Incumbent work theres a Un Security Council resolution, these are american sanctions, all driven by the us to carry counsel, resolutions the russians voted for themselves. Theres always more work to be done on enforcement. Theres a major event on 22 december where every nation is required to have all north korean workers of their country. We talked about that today there are many north korean workers that have been in russia and the Council Resolution requires them to depart. Wer