The meeting will be the highest-level meeting between the US administration and Moscow since Trump’s inauguration. It will take place at 10:30 a.m. ET in the Oval Office and will be closed to the press, according to the White House.
Lavrov met first with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to discuss Ukraine, Syria and other bilateral issues, but even their brief appearance before reporters was upstaged by the Comey firing. After Tillerson briefly welcomed Lavrov and thanked the Russian minister for coming to Washington, a reporter asked if their talks were shadowed by the former FBI director’s sudden dismissal.
A visibly irritated Lavrov said, “Was he fired? You’re kidding! You’re kidding.”
Lavrov, who has been Russia’s top diplomat for more than a decade, was already due to be in town for the meeting with Tillerson before the Trump meeting was announced.
The Lavrov-Tillerson conversation was expected to be “broad, blunt and businesslike,” a senior official told CNN. With ongoing fighting paralyzing eastern Ukraine, the two foreign ministers were set to discuss the need to fully implement the Minsk ceasefire agreement.
Tillerson was also set to press Lavrov on the need to de-escalate the violence in Syria’s civil war, make sure humanitarian assistance was reaching people there and find a political solution to the conflict. The State Department official said it was “too early to tell” whether a Russian-backed plan for safe zones inside Syria was viable.
But the meetings come against a backdrop of recriminations over alleged Russian interference in the 2016 elections and the firing of Comey. The FBI director had been responsible for the bureau’s investigation into whether members of the Trump campaign team colluded with Russia in last year’s election.
Since Lavrov’s meeting with Trump is closed to the press, few details may emerge of what they discuss. However, its timing — in the midst of the furor over the Trump administration’s firing of Comey — has raised some eyebrows.
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