Tillerson’s Visit to Moscow Attempt to Boost Mutual Trust, Russian Lawmaker Says

Russian lawmaker Alexei Pushkov said Wednesday that US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s visit to Moscow marked an attempted to restore mutual trust between Russia and America amid recent spike in tensions cause by Washington's attack on a Syrian airbase.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Tillerson’s visit to Moscow is an attempt to start the trust building process in Russia-US relations, Russian lawmaker Alexei Pushkov said.

Итог переговоров в Москве: это не прорыв, но переход к диалогу и попытке укрепить взаимное доверие после серьезного всплеска напряженности.

— Алексей Пушков (@Alexey_Pushkov) April 12, 2017

​"The result of the talks in Moscow: this is not a breakthrough, but a transition to the dialogue and an attempt to strengthen mutual trust after serious upsurge of tensions," Pushkov posted in his Twitter account following the talks between Tillerson and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Pushkov stressed that resumption of Russian-US talks on strategic arms control opened a new dimension in the dialogue between the states, noting that communicating on the issue was frozen during the presidency of Barack Obama.

Earlier in the day, Lavrov told reporters that he agreed with Tillerson to overcome a pause in the negotiations on the issue of arms control.

On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov emerged from a closed-door summit in the Kremlin to discuss their two-hour meeting with President Vladimir Putin. While the two sides agreed that they "understand each other better," Moscow and Washington have distinctly different perspectives on what should take place in Syria, specifically as it pertains to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's claims to power.