“Relationships are not idyllic, but from today we understand each other better”. The Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, thus summarizes the long meeting that saw him engaged on Wednesday with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, making his debut in Moscow in his role. Evidence of dialogue, therefore, but tension between Russia and the US over Syria remains skyrocketing.
The day began with President Donald Trump calling Syrian leader Bashar al Assad an "animal", accusing Russian number one Vladimir Putin of supporting "the devil". And in the evening he made matters worse: "Assad is a butcher" and "we're not getting along at all with Russia". Indeed, relations between the two countries are "at a minimum", he added.
The last few hours have also recorded a new veto, the eighth, by Russia on Syria in the UN Security Council. Moscow has blocked the resolution promoted by the US, France and Great Britain on the chemical attack on Khan Shaykhun. In the text, in addition to the request for access by the inspectors of the United Nations and Opac to investigate the incident, Damascus was asked to cooperate fully with the two organizations, also providing data on the plane flights on the day of the attack and on military bases.
"Accepting the Western draft meant legitimizing the American raid on Syria," said Moscow's deputy permanent representative to the UN, Vladimir Safronkov, commenting on the Russian veto in the Security Council. “You are afraid of an impartial investigation, the one Russia is asking for,” he said. Lavrov then said that removing Assad could be an advantage for ISIS terrorists.
Tillerson accused the Syrian regime of Assad of having used chlorine bombs and other chemical weapons on "over 50 occasions", for this reason "it absolutely cannot govern Syria: its removal from power must take place in a structured and organized way".
Result: according to Putin, since Trump was elected "the level of trust between the two countries, especially on a military level, has not improved and indeed in all probability it has worsened".
