Tillerson: US could boost cooperation with Russia on Syria
The potential for deeper US-Russian cooperation in Syria will be a key topic of discussion when US President Donald Trump meets Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.
WASHINGTON — The United States is prepared to deepen coordination with Russia to try to stabilize Syria, and that will be a key topic of discussion when US President Donald Trump meets Russian President Vladimir Putin in Hamburg, Germany, on Friday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says.
“The United States and Russia certainly have unresolved differences on a number of issues, but we have the potential to appropriately coordinate in Syria in order to produce stability and serve our mutual security interests,” Tillerson said Wednesday in a lengthy statement before departing to join Trump at the G-20 meeting in Hamburg.
Trump and Putin are expected to meet for about an hour Friday afternoon on the sidelines of the G-20 summit for the first time since Trump came into office. Plans for the much-anticipated meeting have drawn intense scrutiny amid Trump’s reluctance to embrace the US intelligence community’s assessment that the Kremlin interfered in the 2016 US presidential election to boost him and hurt his rival. Whether any Trump campaign associates colluded with the Russian campaign is the subject of multiple investigations by Congress, the FBI and a Justice Department special counsel. Amid the controversy, Syria may ironically turn out to be one of the “safer’’ issues for the two leaders to discuss.
Tillerson cited recent progress between the US and Russian militaries to reduce the possibilities of conflict in their operations in Syria and to resolve misunderstandings that have emerged as a reason for increased US willingness to explore increased coordination.
