RUSSIA: Putin slams Trump ties as top diplomats spar on Syria
The trust between Washington and Moscow has “deteriorated” since Donald Trump was elected US president, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday, as the Kremlin dismissed US calls to abandon Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as “short-sighted” and “absurd”. The comments came as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called the Trump administration to clarify its policies […]
The trust between Washington and Moscow has “deteriorated” since Donald Trump was elected US president, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday, as the Kremlin dismissed US calls to abandon Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as “short-sighted” and “absurd”.
The comments came as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called the Trump administration to clarify its policies as he opened a fraught meeting with his American counterpart, Rex Tillerson.
“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.
Putin doubled down on Russia’s support for Assad, repeating denials that Syria’s government was to blame for a suspected gas attack last week on a rebel-held town, adding that it may have been faked by Assad’s enemies.
“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,” Lavrov said.