Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a visit to Moscow on Wednesday amid heightened tensions over a U.S. airstrike last week on a Syrian air base.
The surprise sit-down comes one day after Kremlin officials said the top American diplomat would not meet with the Russian leader during his first official trip to Moscow.
The meeting is an opportunity for the leaders to confront one another over President Trump’s decision to launch a missile strike against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces in retaliation for what the White House said was a chemical weapons attack he carried out on his own citizens.
Top U.S. officials, including Tillerson, have pressured Putin to drop his support for Assad in the aftermath of the chemical attack.
Putin has publicly raised doubts about whether Assad was responsible for the strike, which killed dozens, and even suggested the U.S. might fake a subsequent gas attack and blame it on the Syrian leader.
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The Russian leader complained Wednesday about the state of U.S.-Russia relations in the wake of the attack.
“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 on Russian television, according to Reuters.
The interview aired just after Tillerson met with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, to kick off their talks.
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JUST IN: Tillerson meets with Putin in Moscow after announcement saying they wouldn't meet https://t.co/egSIBBKDP1 pic.twitter.com/rFb08poqeQ
— The Hill (@thehill) April 12, 2017
The US Sec of State did NOT bring his press pool to the Kremlin for his meeting with the Russian president.
— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) April 12, 2017
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