Tillerson on a Tough Mission in Moscow As Syria Tension Rises

Local Editor

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrived in Moscow with Russia unlikely welcoming his calls for it to stop backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

While Tillerson's decision to skip a NATO summit and visit Moscow initially seemed to highlight the White House's desire for better relations with Russia, expectations shifted after Donald Trump launched cruise missile strikes on a Syrian airbase last week.

The days when Russian politicians talked about better relations and state television trumpeted Trump as a "real man" were clearly over.

As Tillerson began his meetings in Moscow on Wednesday, the question was not so much whether he could reach an agreement on Syria, but whether he could start any sort of dialogue at all.

His first meeting with Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, at February's G20 summit in Germany began with an apparent disagreement over the presence of journalists.

For his part, spokesman of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that a meeting with Tillerson was not on Vladimir Putin's schedule "for now", and the US embassy said it had no information about a potential meeting.

Putin would probably meet with Tillerson only if the sit-down with Lavrov were relatively cordial and productive, Russian analysts said.

"If they remain totally opposed and are only talking about America putting forward an ultimatum, and Russia refuses, then a meeting [with Putin] is meaningless," said Alexei Makarkin, a political analyst.

Meanwhile, Trump's future strategy in Syria remains unclear, which could further complicate the conversation with Russia.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team