US and Russia to work together on chemical weapons inquiry
● Tillerson and Lavrov agree on UN investigation
The United States and Russia have agreed to work together on an international investigation of a Syrian chemical weapons attack last week that prompted retaliatory American missile strikes.
Washington blames Russia’s ally, Syrian president Bashar al-assad, while Moscow said Syrian rebels are responsible.
After a day of discussions with US secretary of state Rex Tillerson, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said the former Cold War foes agreed a UN investigation of events in northern Syria on 4 April was necessary.
More than 80 people were killed in what the US has described as a nerve gas attack that Assad’s forces undoubtedly carried out.
Russia said rebels dispersed whatever chemical agent was found, which the Trump administration calls a disinformation campaign.
The news conference came after Russian president Vladimir Putin met the top American diplomat for almost two hours to see if they could rescue relations between the world’s biggest military powers.
Russia’s alleged meddling in the US presidential election also hovered over the first faceto-face encounter between Mr Putin and a Trump administration Cabinet member.
“There is a low level of trust between our two countries,” Mr Tillerson said.
He said working groups would be established to improve Us-russian ties and identify problems. He said the two sides would also discuss disagreements on Syria and how to end the country’s sixyear civil war.
But such hopes appeared optimistic as the diplomats outlined their sharply diverging views on Syria. Until the chemical attack, the Trump administration had sought to step back from the US position that Assad should leave power. But Mr Tillerson repeated the administration’s new belief that “the reign of the Assad family is coming to an end”.
Mr Tillerson said Syria’s government had committed more than 50 attacks using chlorine or other chemical weapons over the duration of the conflict. And he suggested that possible war crimes charges could be levied against the Syrian leader.
Russia has never publicly acknowledged any such attack by Assad’s forces and has tried for the past 18 months to help him expand his authority in Syria.
The civil war is separate from the Us-led effort against the Islamic State group in the north of the country.
The most immediate Usrussia dispute concerned culpability for the chemical weapons, though broader disagreements over everything from Ukraine to Russia’s support for once-fringe candidates in European election were among other sore points.
Steeped in geopolitical intrigue, the meeting between Mr Putin and Mr Tillerson was not formally confirmed until the last minute, following days of speculation about whether the Russian would refuse to grant the former oil executive an audience.