Don urges to rein in Assad, Lavrov cracks Comey joke

Washington, May 10: Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday held talks with US President Donald Trump in the highest-level face-to-face meeting between the two countries since Trump’s election.

Lavrov’s visit to the Oval Office was a rare welcome for a foreign minister — or any non-head of state representing a foreign country. Earlier, Lavrov met his American counterpart Rex Tillerson and discussed a host of issues amid a raging political storm over the abrupt sacking of the FBI director, who was probing Russia’s meddling in the US polls.

Peppered with questions on Comey’s firing, Lavrov joked around. “Does the Comey firing cast a shadow of your talks, gentlemen?” a reported asked.

“Was he fired?” Lavrov questioned. “Yes”, the reporter responded. “You are kidding. You are kidding,” replied Lavrov.

After meeting Lavrov in his Oval office, Trump said, “We had a very, very good meeting. We’re going to stop the killing and the death (in Syria). I think that we are going to do very well with respect to Syria, I think things are happening - they are really, really, really positive.”

Trump appealed to Moscow to “rein in” the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and its key ally Iran.

The veteran Russian diplomat said the two sides were seeking to “remove all the barriers” in their thorny relationship, and praised his meetings on Syria as “constructive.”

“President Trump clearly confirmed his interest in building mutually beneficial, business-like pragmatic relations,” Lavrov told journalists. — PTI, AFP