Alex Wong/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — For the first time in years, Mr. Lavrov is coming to Washington.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov will meet in Washington Wednesday morning — their second in-person meeting in the little over three months Tillerson has been in office.
The visit by Russia’s longtime foreign minister is the first since August 2013, a sign of the high-stakes conversations between the two countries, even as Tillerson and others have said the relationship is at an all-time low.
Last week, the two spoke by phone twice and their country’s leaders, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, spoke once. The State Department said tomorrow’s agenda will include Syria, Ukraine, and other bilateral issues.
In particular, the two are expected to discuss the “de-escalation zones” inside Syria that Russia, Iran, and Turkey agreed to create last week. Four areas in the civil war-ravaged country are supposed to be under ceasefire starting this week — but it’s unclear how they are to be enforced or by whom, amid reports of some continued fighting within them.
The U.S. has expressed hesitant endorsement of the zones, wary of Iran’s involvement and the past failures at a ceasefire in Syria. Trump often called for the creation of “safe zones” in Syria on the campaign trail as part of his opposition to admitting Syrian refugees into the country. Tillerson himself made a mention of “interim zones of stability” in an address to the Global Coalition to Counter ISIS, but has offered few other details.
Wednesday’s meeting has already been criticized for what it may not include. Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs Committee tweeted a mocking “correction” of the State Department’s press release on the meeting.
Here, @StateDept, we fixed it for you… pic.twitter.com/TtEcR5kTUj
— Foreign Affairs Cmte (@HFACDemocrats) May 8, 2017
In particular, there is remaining concern that Tillerson won’t address the Russian hack during the 2016 election or stand strongly enough against Russian interference in Ukraine or its annexation of Crimea.
The meeting was originally scheduled to take place on the sidelines of the Arctic Council ministerial summit in Fairbanks, Alaska — where the two will be joined by the ministers of the Council’s six other countries to discuss scientific and environmental issues.
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