Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s trip to Moscow has been “very successful,” according to President Trump.
“I think he had a very successful meeting in Russia,” Trump said during a joint press briefing with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, adding that he’ll have a detailed conversation with Tillerson later Wednesday. “We’ll see, we’ll see the end result, which will be in a long period of time perhaps. But the end result is what’s most important, not just talk. But I think based on everything I’m hearing things went pretty well, maybe better than anticipated.”
Tillerson’s meetings with Russian leaders was guaranteed to dominate international attention from the beginning of the Trump administration. U.S. airstrikes against Syrian President Bashar Assad last week added a new level of drama to the talks. Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the west of staging a false flag chemical weapons attack in order to justify bombing his ally, a charge leveled just one day before Tillerson’s arrival.
“It’d be a fantastic thing if we got along with Putin and if we got along with Russia and that could happen and it may not happen,” Trump said during the event with Stoltenberg, whose trip to the United States coincided pointedly with Tillerson’s trip to Moscow. “It may be just the opposite. I can only tell you what I would like to do. I would love to get along with everybody.”
Tillerson agreed, following meetings with Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, to establish a working group that could provide a forum for Russia and the United States to cooperate on relatively minor foreign policy issues. But their disagreements about Syria were on sharp display, as Lavrov cast doubt once again on U.S. claims that Assad was behind the chemical weapons strike.
“Just as in the case of the so-called Russian hackers and the chemical incidents in Syria, we would very much like to get some concrete evidence, not just words,” Lavrov said Wednesday.
Hours later, Russia vetoed a U.N. Security Council draft resolution that would have mandated an extensive international investigation of the attacks, saying the terms of the draft were too onerous for Assad. “It is long past time for Russia to stop covering for Assad,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said before the vote. “It is long past time for Russia to push seriously for peace and not continue to be part of the problem.”
Trump, who called Assad “a butcher” during the press conference, hinted that he’s not worried about a bad relationship with Russia even though he would like to improve it.
“Putin is the leader of Russia — Russia’s a strong country,” Trump said. “We’re a very, very strong country, we’re going to see how that all works out.”
