Donald Trump is not known for particular care with words, so it was all too easy to turn his qualified view that US relations with Russia “may be at an all-time low” into a categorical assertion. And from there, it required little imagination to conclude that the US President’s campaign pledge to try for a rapprochementwith his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, could be added to the growing list of White House U-turns.

Such an impression may have taken hold in Washington and London – to the satisfaction of those many who believed, or hoped, that Trump’s desire to mend fences with the Kremlin would fail – but it is far too early to write it off. Nor do the statements and signals that emerged from the US Secretary of State’s intensive day of meetings in Moscow bear out in any way that the project is over. In some ways the opposite is true.

It is worth looking at Rex Tillerson’s trip to Moscow in some detail. First, it is significant that he went ahead with the trip so soon after the two countries exchanged sharp words about responsibility for the presumed gas attack in Syria and the US launched its air strike. Second, despite public doubts about whether there would be a meeting with Putin, Tillerson actually spent two hours in talks with the Russian President. Not only that, but – almost uniquely – Putin did not keep his guest waiting.

MORE:   http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/donald-trump-russia-putin-rex-tillerson-meeting-moscow-syria-air-strike-assad-all-time-low-a7682886.html