Election interference, Venezuela and Syria top Pompeo's Russia visit

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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is heading to Russia to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin and his counterpart Sergei Lavrov to discuss a slew of issues including Russia's meddling of election, Venezuela and Syria.

On Tuesday, Pompeo will meet with Putin in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, in the highest-level U.S. engagement with the Russian leader since a July summit in Helsinki after which Trump faced wide scorn at home for his trustful embrace of the Russian leader.

Pompeo's trip comes less than two months after Special Counsel Robert Mueller wound up an investigation that found that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election – but that the Trump campaign did not collude with Moscow.

Photo features U.S. President Donald Trump, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton /Reuters Photo

On May 3, the presidents of the two countries chatted for more than an hour by telephone, in what Trump hailed as a "very positive" conversation.

Trump said that Putin had assured him that Russia was not involved in Venezuela – directly contradicting Pompeo and other top officials who for weeks have demanded that Moscow stop backing Nicolas Maduro, whom Washington is trying to topple.

Venezuela is only one of a slew of issues where the United States and Russia have clashed. Others include the Syrian war, arms control commitments and the conflict in Ukraine.

A State Department official said Pompeo, who will also meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for the second time in as many weeks, would push for progress in particular in one area – arms control.

The New START Treaty, which caps the number of nuclear warheads well below Cold War limits, is set to expire in 2021.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrive to talk to the press as they meet on the sidelines of the Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting in Rovaniemi, Finland, May 6, 2019. /Reuters Photo

Another key accord, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, just collapsed, with the United States pulling out over charges that a new Russian missile system violated it.

Despite deep rifts on many hotspots, the State Department official said that Russia and the United States, if not seeing eye-to-eye, had developed "constructive" relationships on Afghanistan and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"It is in our interest to have a better relationship with Russia," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

(Cover: Russian honor guards march through Red Square during the Victory Day military parade in downtown Moscow, May 9, 2019. /Reuters Photo)

Source(s): AFP