The news of the last 30 minutes. Moscow is ready to reactivate the Memorandum of Russia and the United States on incident prevention in Syria. This statement was made after the meeting between Sergey Lavrov and Rex Tillerson. This will be possible if the parties confirm the original purpose of the actions of the US Aviation and the Russian Air Force. We are talking about the fight against terrorist groups ISIS and Jabhat Al-Nusra. Our correspondent Anna Baldina followed the negotiations.

It was a full house, so many journalists came to the press conference of Sergey Lavrov and Rex Tillerson. The open part of the talks was brief, but still the diplomats set the course for further conversations. Compared to the first February meeting in Bonn, which was almost closed to the media, in Moscow, the protocol shoot was extended.

The diplomats didn’t react to the questions yelled out by American journalists. On the rights of the meeting's host, Lavrov chided the guests saying: "Who taught you manners?" At the press conference, there were more than twenty cameras. Journalists didn't fit in one room. Diplomats said that the number one task is to restore trust. They will create a working group on the problems of bilateral relations. As for Syria, Mr. Tillerson didn't directly answer the question about Washington's rhetoric and comparisons of President Assad with an animal and Hitler.

Allegedly, the US has data on fifty cases of chemical weapons use by the Syrian authorities, but they didn’t cite the source. The Russian Minister drew attention to the fact that attacks were judged by remote evidence. It is necessary to establish the truth through the mechanisms of the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. We insist on an objective investigation of what happened on April 4.





By the way, as it was before, all this successfully coincided with the conference on Syria at the initiative of the European Union in Brussels. Many of the participants of this conference, as soon reports came in on the use of chemicals in Idlib Province, loudly and actively demanded that the entire conference was devoted to this topic. And actually it was convened to consider the whole complex of problems of the Syrian settlement. Little is known about the meeting with President Putin, although they spoke for one and a half to two hours without cameras.

The US insists that there is no place for Assad in Syria's political future, "the world won’t accept that". Lavrov emphasizes that personalities don’t matter. Leaders have already been removed by outsiders. Nothing good ever happened. The list of the countries is known. It's not for the world to decide, but for Syrian people. We consider it extremely important that the departure of Assad must take place in a structured and civilized way, so that absolutely all communities are represented at the negotiations while making a political decision. How this will happen will be explained by the political process that is being developed. We understand that this will take some time. But the result, as it seems to us, doesn’t provide for the role of Assad in the state administration of Syria. The international community won't accept this. And we won’t either. One thing is pleasing.

The new head of the State Department still calls Russia an ally in the Syrian settlement. Sanctions weren’t discussed. However, Tillerson's assessment of what is good and what is bad is unpredictable. For example, cyber intervention. If it's during the US election, it’s bad. Although there's no evidence. And if the intervention is about the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea, it’s fine. We don't count on one particular person. Neither President Assad, nor anyone else. As they are trying in Libya, to count on either Sarraj or Haftar. We suggest that they sit down and come to an agreement. It's the same in Syria. All Syrians should, as it’s written in the UN Security Council resolution, sit down and come to an agreement. This should be an inclusive inter-Syrian dialogue.

In comparison with John Kerry, Rex Tillerson doesn’t speak much, but that’s why it’s so difficult to understand him. Nevertheless, the Russian minister said: "Now, after the meeting, we understand each other better".