(13) Tillerson To Visit Russia In May, Will Skip NATO Meeting In April

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2017/03/mil-170321-rferl01.htm?_m=3n%2e002a%2e1970%2emg0ao016xv%2e1t98

Tillerson To Visit Russia In May, Will Skip NATO Meeting In April

In-Depth Coverage

RFE/RL March 21, 2017

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will make his first visit to Russia as part of a European trip in May but will not attend a NATO meeting in April.

The State Department revealed the plans late on March 20. It did not say why Tillerson would miss the April 5-6 NATO meeting with foreign ministers from the 27 other countries in the Western security alliance.

Citing unnamed current and former U.S. officials, Reuters reported that Tillerson was skipping the semiannual meeting in Brussels to attend talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the president's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, which are expected April 6-7.

Tillerson will fly to Moscow following a May 26-27 summit of the Group of Seven (G7) countries in Italy, while U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Tom Shannon will attend the NATO meeting in April, the State Department said.

In response to questions about reports of Tillerson's trip to Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on March 21 that the ministry was "not prepared to confirm or deny this information."

"But we are certainly surprised by the regular leak of sensitive information from Washington," Zakharova said on Facebook.

The Russian news agency Interfax quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying that he "knows nothing" about Tillerson's trip.

Information about the Moscow visit comes amid an investigation by U.S. authorities over allegations of Russian cyberattacks during the presidential campaign and meetings between Russian officials and several Trump campaign officials.

Trump repeatedly expressed admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin during the U.S. presidential campaign and has said he hopes relations between the two countries, which are badly strained, will improve. But despite initial expectations of a meeting with Putin early in Trump's presidency, no date has been set for face-to-face talks, and senior administration officials, including Tillerson, have taken a tough stance on Russia in public statements.

Tillerson, a former ExxonMobil CEO who interacted with Russian officials for years as an executive at the oil giant and was given a friendship medal by Putin in 2013, has in the past criticized the sanctions imposed on Russia over its interference in Ukraine.

During the presidential election campaign, NATO members were rattled by Trump's characterization of the security alliance as "obsolete" and his questioning of whether the United States would come to the aid of NATO members in the event of an attack by Russia.

NATO has a mutual-defense guarantee that calls for a response by all members of the pact in the event of an attack on one member. At his confirmation hearings in January, Tillerson called the guarantee inviolable.

However, Trump administration officials have also said members must honor military spending pledges to ensure the United States does not "moderate" its support for the alliance. Trump recently said Germany owes NATO and the United States "vast sums" of money for defense, a claim Germany has denied.

The United States accounts for 70 percent of NATO's funding. At a summit in 2014, members not meeting an alliance guideline of spending at least 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on defense pledged to "aim to move towards the 2 percent guideline within a decade."

Tillerson is expected to meet with foreign ministers from nearly all the NATO members at a March 22 meeting in Washington on combating the extremist group Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

A NATO official told RFE/RL that Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg was meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on March 21 and would "discuss progress in the fight against terrorism with Secretary Tillerson" and others at the meeting on March 22.

The official said that Stoltenberg "will continue his regular contacts with the US administration, which has confirmed its strong commitment to NATO, both in words and in deeds."

"It's up to Allies to decide at what level they are represented" at NATO ministerial meetings, the official said.

With reporting by RFE/RL Senior Correspondent Carl Schreck, Reuters, AP, TASS, Interfax, and The Washington Post

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/tillerson- russia-visit-nato/28381658.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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