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Putin Gives U.S. Delegation Cold Shoulders

Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that trust had eroded between the United States and Russia under President Donald Trump, as Moscow delivered an unusually hostile … Continue reading Putin Gives U.S. Delegation Cold Shoulders


Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that trust had eroded between the United States and Russia under President Donald Trump, as Moscow delivered an unusually hostile reception to Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson in a face-off over Syria.

This is coming as the new U.S. leader fired missiles at Syria to punish Moscow’s ally for its suspected use of poison gas.

The Kremlin had previously declined to confirm Putin would meet Tillerson, reflecting tensions over the U.S. strike on Syria.

Rex Tillerson – Courtesy: www.slate.com

Tillerson, however, started a meeting with Putin in the Kremlin after talking to his Russian Counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, for about three hours.

In his opening remarks, Lavrov giving off the cold shoulder, stated: “I won’t hide the fact that we have a lot of questions, taking into account the extremely ambiguous and sometimes contradictory ideas which have been expressed in Washington across the whole spectrum of bilateral and multilateral affairs.

“And of course, that’s not to mention that apart from the statements, we observed very recently the extremely worrying actions, when an illegal attack against Syria was undertaken.”

A senior Russian official assailed the “primitiveness and loutishness” of U.S. rhetoric, part of a volley of statements that appeared timed to maximize the awkwardness during the first visit by a member of Trump’s cabinet.

“One could say that the level of trust on a working level, especially on the military level, has not improved but has rather deteriorated,” Putin said in an interview broadcast on Russian television.

He also doubled down on Russia’s support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, repeating denials that Assad’s government was to blame for the gas attack last week and adding a new theory that the attack may have been faked by Assad’s enemies.

Tillerson, on the other hand, kept to more calibrated remarks, saying his aim was “to further clarify areas of sharp difference so that we can better understand why these differences exist and what the prospects for narrowing those differences may be.”

“I look forward to a very open, candid, frank exchange so that we can better define the U.S.-Russian relationship from this point forward,” he told Lavrov.