One exposes his “disappointment”, the other “a new idea.” The Secretary of State of the United States, Marco Rubio, said Thursday, July 10, said “disappointment” and “frustration” to his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in the absence of progress towards peace in Ukraine.
“I echoed the president’s words (Donald Trump), disappointment and frustration in the absence of progress,” Marco Rubio told Sergei Lavrov, during his meeting outside a meeting of the diplomacy of diplomacy of Southeast Asian countries in Kuala Lumpur.
Marco Rubio also said that his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov told him a “new idea” about Ukraine: “It is not a new approach. It is a new idea or a new concept that I will bring to the President (Donald Trump) to discuss it.”
He also specified that it was not an initiative that drives “automatically to peace”, but “which could allow the door to open” towards a possible path.
Marco Rubio’s visit, the first in Asia since he assumed the position, coincides with the intensification of Donald Trump of his commercial war. The latter threatened more than 20 countries with punitive customs rights this week.
The head of American diplomacy spoke with Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines of a meeting of foreign ministers of the Southeast Asian Nations Association (ASEAN), regional organization of 10 countries, in Kuala Lumpur.
New strikes
His meeting began a few hours after Russia hit the Ukrainian capital kyiv with a second save murders in two days of drones and missiles. The last attack left two dead, according to local authorities. They followed the hard comments of the US president to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, whom he accused of saying “shit” in Ukraine.
Donald Trump also said that the United States would send “more weapons” to kyiv to defend himself, expressing Washington’s growing frustration in this file. Marco Rubio and Sergei Lavrov had already met in mid -February in Saudi Arabia, in the process of approaching between the presidents of Trump and Putin. They also spoke several times by phone.
After Malaysia, Sergei Lavrov must move this weekend in North Korea, where senior Russian officials have gone several times in recent months. Pyongyang approached Moscow, sending thousands of North Korean soldiers to Koursk’s Russian region to persecute Ukrainian forces and transport ammunition and missiles to Russia.
“Central Point”
In his first statements to Kuala Lumpur, the head of American diplomacy said that the United States “intends to leave” Asia-Pacific. “The region remains a central point of foreign policy of the United States,” said Marco Rubio.
“We have no intention of abandoning our associations, but to strengthen and develop them,” he added, while the attention of the United States has largely paid conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.
But Donald Trump has also threatened about twenty countries, many of them Asian, of greater customs duties than initially planned and vary from 20% to 50%. He also announced a 50% tax on copper imports and another 200%, which could be applied to pharmaceutical products.
The Prime Minister of Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim, denounced on Wednesday, at the opening of the Asean meeting, customs duties that have become “acute tools at the service of geopolitical rivalries.”
Restored customs tasks
Donald Trump announced on Monday that customs duties suspended in April would be restored as of August 1, sometimes even more marked increases, in absence according to Washington.
Among the target countries are some of Washington’s main allies, such as Japan and South Korea with a 25%surcharge. Members of ASEAN, Indonesia, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Brunei and Burma, Burma, Customs Tasks from 20% to 40%.
Vietnam is the only country, with the United Kingdom, which concluded an agreement in principle with the United States, allowing it to be significantly stronger than expected. In Malaysia, Marco Rubio must also maintain trilateral discussions with the Philippines and Japan, in the context of tensions in the south of the Sea of China.
His Chinese counterpart Wang Yi is also present at this Asean meeting. However, no meeting has been confirmed between the two men at the moment. The litigation between Beijing and Washington are numerous, from commerce to fentanyl, through Taiwan or rivalry in advanced technologies.
“The southern China Sea is a common home for the countries of the region, and not an area of gladiator for the main powers,” Wang Yi said in a meeting on Thursday between China and ASEAN, in an evening reference to the United States.
Source: BFM TV
