Secretary of State Rex Tillerson dismissed complaints that he would not meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov while traveling in Africa as a “silly” controversy.
“I’ve lost track of how many meetings he and I had last year. So any notion of us rejecting diplomatic engagement is really silly,” Tillerson said during a press availability in Ethiopia on Thursday. “That’s just silly.”
Tillerson and Lavrov are expected to share a hotel in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, as both officials conduct multi-state swings through the region, but they won’t meet. That disconnect has prompted complaints from the Russian side, with Lavrov accusing U.S. officials of lying about Moscow’s outreach.
“I have learnt that no discussion of the possibility of our meeting was held,” Lavrov said Thursday, per state-run media. “When it turned out that both of us would be in Ethiopia this evening, we delivered the relevant proposal to the Americans. They said they would think over that.”
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Tuesday Russia had not requested a meeting. Russian officials replied Wednesday they proposed the encounter on March 2.
“Considering that they deemed it appropriate [to make such statements], I want to say that this is untrue,” Lavrov said.
Tillerson knew only of a last-minute request, he said.
“I was unaware Foreign Minister Lavrov was going to be here at the same time I was until a couple of days ago, and I’m unaware of any outreach to want to meet until I was on my way over here,” he said. “My schedule’s largely set, so if it doesn’t work out here, he and I see each other often around the world, and we have each other’s telephone numbers, and we do use them.”
