Credit: U.S. Department of State / photo by Freddie Everett/     Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in an expanded bilateral meeting, at the Department of State in Washington, D.C.,   December 10, 2019

By Gary Raynaldo      DIPLOMATIC  TIMES

WASHINGTON   –  The U.S. Tuesday issued Russia a grave warning about messing around in America’s political process: Don’t even think about  it! 

“The Trump administration will always work to protect the integrity of our elections, period.  Should Russia or any foreign actor take steps to undermine our democratic processes, we will take action in response.”

– Secretary of State Michael  R. Pompeo 

The U.S.  Secretary of State made the  comments  after a bilateral meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the State Department headquarters in Washington D.C.  The Russian foreign minister didn’t waste anytime refuting what he said are baseless allegations regarding Moscow’s interference in U.S. elections.

“We have highlighted once again that all speculation about our alleged interference in domestic processes in the  United States are baseless. There are no facts that would support that. No one has given us this proof because simply it does not exist.”

-Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov

United States Seeks “Better” Relationship With Russia

Credit: U.S. Department of State / photo by Freddie Everett/     Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the Department of State in Washington, D.C.,   December 10, 2019

“Last May, at President Trump’s request, I made a trip to Russia to meet with President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov.  The reason was pretty straightforward.  We should have a better relationship – the United States and Russia – than we’ve had in the last few years, and we’ve been working on that since that moment,” Pompeo  stated.  Since the last meeting in Moscow, Pompeo said the parties agreed to keep lines of communications open and  that talks continued with the latest meeting with Lavrov in Washington D.C. this week.   Pompeo and  the Russian foreign minister  touched on counterterrorism, counternarcotics.  “Our intelligence and law enforcement professionals cooperate in these areas on a daily basis and will keep doing so, and we’ll aim to make that cooperation even more refined and better,” Pompeo said.

ON  SYRIA:

“…we are committed to working though UN Security Council Resolution 2254 to find a political solution to the crisis there in Syria.  I think we agree that there’s no military solution and we both want to ensure that Syria never again becomes a safe haven for ISIS and other terrorist groups.” Pompeo stated.  “That same thing goes for Afghanistan as well, and we worked – talked about the cooperation that our two countries have had on the issues that face us in Afghanistan.”

ON  NORTH KOREA

“Today, too, we agreed on the final, fully verified denuclearization of North Korea as our joint objective,” the Secretary of States said. “These are all good, positive areas where our two countries have cooperated and will continue to do so,”  Pompeo added.

Pompeo pointed out, however, there are other places where there are greater challenges.

VENEZUELA

“Venezuela is one of them. The longer that Nicolas Maduro hangs on to power, the deeper the misery of the Venezuelan people.  We’ve asked the Russian Government to support the aspiration for democracy and the legitimacy of Interim President Juan Guaido and the call that we have made for free and fair presidential elections,” Pompeo stated.

Russia Position on  VENEZUELA:

“Russia consistently promotes the idea that it should be Venezuelan-led and the people should define their future, and those sprouts of dialogue that were first seen in the Oslo format that unfortunately is in limbo right now, and that dialogue that we are seeing in the roundtable in between the moderate opposition and the government would yield the necessary result and the crisis will be settled through peaceful means only.”

-Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov

ON  IRAN  Nuclear Program:

” You are well aware of our position.  We believe it is necessary to do everything in our power to save JCPOA in order to ensure the peaceful nature of Iranian nuclear research.  Naturally, we are very concerned about the situation that is taking place in the Persian Gulf in the Strait of Hormuz, and we also promote for all countries that want to ensure its security and safety of navigation would review the Russian proposal.  We’ve suggested to begin a dialogue about creating a system of collective security around the Gulf.” -Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov

ON  UKRAINE:

“I reiterated that Crimea belongs to Ukraine and that the resolution of the conflict in the eastern Ukraine begins with adherence to commitments  under the Minsk agreement,” Pompeo said.