T.S. Eliot said, “April is the cruellest month”. For those who wanted a Trump administration that was anti-interventionist, diplomatic and focused mainly on domestic issues, April was cruel indeed. But now that May has begun, there are several signs which are impossible to ignore, suggesting that Trump may be slowly getting back to his pre-April self.
1. Middle East versus Domestic Expenditure
A day prior to the resumption of the Astana Peace Talks on Syria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have held a phone call to discuss each side’s position on Syria and other pressing matters. America has no official role in Astana, but will be keenly interested in the results of this round of discussions.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has had a meeting in Moscow with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir, during which they have publicly clashed on the way forward in the Syrian crisis.
Al-Jubeir predictably demanded that President Assad leave power in Syria, and said that Iran and Hezbollah – Syria’s allies – had no role in that country.
A report in the Russian newspaper Izvestia sourced from the Russian Foreign Ministry says that in response to US pleas Russia has quietly switched back on the hotline between the Russian and US militaries in Syria.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has held a meeting with Federica Mogherini, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
Mogherini used her meeting to justify the EU’s sanctions levelled against Russia since 2014. She again raised the tired old issue of Crimea to justify the sanctions.
The EU’s almost pathological obsession with Crimea is not only strange but it is becoming mystifying.
Russian Foreign Minsiter Sergey Lavrov has criticised the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) for refusing to investigate the site of the infamous alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria’s Idlib Governorate, said to have happened on the 4th of April.
The organisation which oversaw the removal of chemical weapons from the possession of the Syrian government in 2013/2014 has drawn its conclusion over the alleged attack in Khan Sheikhun without having visited the region.
Sergey Lavrov, Walid Muallem and Mohammad Javad Zarif, the foreign Ministers of Russia, Syria and Iran, have met in Moscow to affirm a united front in the aftermath of America’s illegal attack on Syria from the 7th of April.
Lavrov issued a statement saying:
Since US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s meeting with President Putin yesterday, and since the joint press conference between Tillerson and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov which followed shortly after, there have been numerous media reports which say that President Putin heeded Tillerson’s request to reinstate the hotline between the US and Russian militaries in Syria, and that as a result this hotline is back in operation.
This is quite simply wrong. It arises from a poor translation of certain comments Foreign Minister Lavrov made at the joint news conference.
They say all is fair in love and war, but Russia and the US not at war. Diplomacy on the other hand, even in tense times is about respect, protocol and dignity. It seems that NBC’s Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrew Mitchell didn’t get the memo.
During the morning briefing with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Mitchell shouted out a question as Lavrov was about to make his opening remarks.
Lavrov, the indelible picture of good humoured dignity did not take it well. He said to Mitchell,
Today was the day that the US thought it could break Russia’s partnership with Syria and also with Iran. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer laid out the goals clearly yesterday. It was America’s ‘duty’ to break Russia away from countries like Syria, Iran and allegedly North Korea. It didn’t happen.
First of all, Russia and Syria are close partners. Secondly, North Korea is not a partner of Russia, but nor does Russia want renewed conflict in the Korean peninsula.
