Tillerson arrives in Moscow as relations sour over Syria conflict
UK's Johnson 'humiliated' over failure to get deal on Russia sanctions
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrived in Moscow for crunch talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, as the fallout from last week’s chemical weapons attack and subsequent airstrikes in Syria intensified.
Tillerson left a planned NATO summit in order to meet with Lavrov and other Russian officials on Wednesday as the conflict in the troubled Middle Eastern state showed little sign of being resolved.
The US launched missile strikes after accusing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of using sarin gas against civilians during an attack, but Russia has been steadfast in its support of the regime.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that relations between the two superpowers had "eroded".
"One could say that the level of trust on a working level, especially on the military level, has not improved, but rather has eroded," Putin said in an interview transcript released by the Kremlin.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that relations between the two superpowers have "eroded"
Putin went on the offensive on Tuesday by claiming that further US airstrikes had been planned for other Syrian cities, including the capital of Damascus, as well as referring to the chemical attacks as a "fake" designed to drag Washington into the conflict.
Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson denied suffering a defeat at the G7 summit in Italy, after his proposal to hand down sanctions to Russia was shot down.
Johnson had put forward the plan to bring swift sanctions against Russia due to its alleged role in the nerve gas attack in Idlib, but Italian counterpart Angelino Alfano said that Putin "must not be pushed into a corner".
Tillerson's talks with Lavrov are ongoing, while President Donald Trump will be interviewed by Fox Business on Wednesday, in which he is expected to reaffirm the US’ foreign policy objectives regarding Syria. Among those is the target of defeating radical group Islamic State, as well as "not going into" Syria.