Russia, US talk tough
Big powers disagree on Assad
TENSE comments and warnings from the Russian side marked the beginning of what was likely to be a tough day for US secretary of state Rex Tillerson yesterday as he attempted to persuade Moscow to abandon its support for Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
In the opening remarks of a meeting with Tillerson, Russian foreign minster Sergei Lavrov warned the US not to attempt another attack against Syria after last week’s missile strike plunged US-Russian relations into a new post-Cold War low.
“It is of paramount importance to avert risks and recurrences of such actions in the future,” Lavrov said.
Tillerson, looking directly as his counterpart while speaking, said he aimed to clear up some “sharp differences”, and discuss ways to narrow them going forward. He said he hoped their discussions would be candid, and the two governments maintain open lines of communication. But Moscow appeared unready to budge on the primary goal of Tillerson’s mission – persuading Russia to help remove Assad from power.
In what was effectively an ultimatum, Tillerson on Tuesday said that Moscow must calculate the costs of remaining an ally of Assad, the Iranians and Lebanon’s Shia militia Hezbollah. Russia’s foreign ministry dismissed those remarks yesterday.
“I believe everyone realised a long time ago that there is no use in giving us ultimatums. This is simply counter-productive,” ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on the internet news site TVDozhd.
The Donald Trump administration on Tuesday revealed intelligence it said proved that Syrian forces had carried out the deadly chemical weapons attack that led to the US missile strike. Russian President Vladimir Putin, in excerpts of an interview to be broadcast in full on Russian TV yesterday, argued there is no proof Assad’s forces carried out the attack and called the US strikes a breach of international law.