Russia, US headed for new lows over terrorism, Syria
Despite claims that the Russian foreign minister's visit to Washington was genial and productive, by the time Sergey Lavrov landed back in Moscow, some of the areas of potential cooperation had already grown more snarled.
MOSCOW — Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov paid a one-day visit to Washington for a meeting with US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo. Lavrov was also received by President Donald Trump at the White House and spoke at the Center for the National Interest, a think tank established by Former President Richard Nixon that bills itself as “a voice for strategic realism in US foreign policy.”
In late September, Lavrov led the Russian delegation to the UN General Assembly summit in New York. He last visited Washington in May 2017, when his meeting with Trump in the White House produced allegations that the US president had passed along top-secret information that potentially jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.
This time, the parties said they discussed counter-terrorism cooperation, the Normandy summit on the conflict in Ukraine, arms control, de-nuclearization of North Korea, the political crisis in Venezuela and the turmoil in Iraq and Lebanon as well as the situations in Syria, Afghanistan, Iran and the Gaza Strip.
Both Pompeo and Trump would later state they warned Moscow via Lavrov over interference in US elections. However, speaking at the press conference before heading back to Moscow, Russia’s top diplomat briefly noted, “We did not discuss elections at all.”
