President holds joint press conference with NATO Sec. General Jens Stoltenberg hold a joint press conference in the East Room of the White House on Wednesday, April 12th.
The press conference is scheduled to start at 4:00 pm eastern time.
Following a lengthy five hour meeting in Moscow with Foreign Minister Lavrov, and following an “unscheduled” meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin, Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson are scheduled to hold a joint press conference at 130pm Wednesday, April 12:
Update – Video Added
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held a lengthy bi-lateral meeting earlier today on the heels of considerable political posturing surrounding the Syrian conflict and Assad’s use of chemical weapons.
Lavrov enters the meeting with a weak hand as the international community has fully supported the approach of U.S. President Donald Trump toward halting Bashar al-Assad’s attacks on his political opposition within Syria.
Gamesmanship and optics are very important to Russian President Putin as his position in Russia is entirely dependent upon his projection of strength.
.
Minister Lavrov and President Putin do not yet know how to approach Secretary Tillerson and President Trump because the U.S. administration is now entirely different from their former frame of reference. That unsettled nervousness comes through in Lavrov’s comments and statements.
The weaker player within bilateral diplomacy is always the one using the most words to justify their position. In the transcript below, the “tells” are emphasized by me.
President Trump and Defense Secretary Mattis both gave almost identical responses today when asked about the future administration policy toward Syria. Secretary Mattis speaking from the Pentagon stated:
President Trump speaking to the New York Post stated:
(Via New York Post) Amid complaints that his aides are saying different things about Syria and his policy is confusing, President Trump emphatically cleared the air.
“We’re not going into Syria,” he told me yesterday in an exclusive interview. “Our policy is the same — it hasn’t changed. We’re not going into Syria.”
According to Russian state media reports President Vladimir Putin has reversed his prior position will meet with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. This is the first flinch from Putin and highlights his awareness of how weakened his political hand has become.
The Trump administration, led by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, has maneuvered a strong-play (punched Assad, Russia and Iran directly where it hurts) and gathered the support of a massive international audience.
Putin’s intransigence and unwillingness to state publicly that chemical weapons are out-of-bounds, has created his isolation and diminishment. Additionally, U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley made Russia’s Deputy Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov look like a disconnected apologist for Assad’s brutality at the emergency U.N meeting.
Prior attempts to play out the optic of the unaffected strong-man (staying away from direct talks with T-Rex), have now collapsed and the political optic reversed. Secretary Tillerson looms internationally as the tower of moral strength. Instead of projecting strength President Putin looks weak, cowered and afraid of T-Rex on the international stage. Hence, it does not come as a surprise to hear Vladimir Putin has reversed his decision:
(Via Daily Mail) Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet with Donald Trump’s chief diplomat after all during his stay in Moscow, a Russian television station has reported.
Putin’s spokesman said Monday that the foreign leader did not plan to see Rex Tillerson, the US secretary of state. Tillerson was to meet with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, instead.
General James Mattis is anticipated to deliver his first Pentagon briefing since becoming Secretary of Defense. Mattis is anticipated to discuss Syria, Russia, North Korea and China and the U.S. military contingencies toward that end. Anticipated start time 3:30pm ET
Update: Full Video Added
.
…”I think what we have to look at here is a policy decision by the United States. There is a limit to what we can do. And when you look at what happened with this chemical attack we knew that we could not stand passive on this. But it was not a statement that we could enter full-fledged, full-bore, into the most complex civil war – probably waging on the planet, at this time.”
~ Defense Secretary James Mattis
Prior to leaving the G7 Summit in Italy, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson deliberately outlined the U.S. policy and objectives toward: Syria, the Syrian People, Bashir Assad, Russia and the extremist Jihadist elements on the ground in Syria.
The statement and answers to the questions are intensely important [transcript below], particularly the clarity from Secretary Tillerson regarding the future of Bashir Assad. Do not focus on the media interpretation of T-Rex’s words; listen and watch directly the words themselves.
.
[TRANSCRIPT] SECRETARY TILLERSON: Good morning. I’ve got a statement. I want to share it first, and then I’m happy to take a couple of questions.
Last week, Bashar al-Assad’s regime killed even more of its own people using chemical weapons. Our missile strike in response to his repeated use of banned weapons was necessary as a matter of U.S. national security interest.
We do not want the regime’s uncontrolled stockpile of chemical weapons to fall into the hands of ISIS or other terrorist groups who could, and want to, attack the United States or our allies.
On September 30th 2016 the New York Times quietly released a leaked audio recording of Secretary John Kerry meeting with multiple factions associated within Syria.
The 40-minute discussion took place on the sidelines of a United Nations General Assembly in New York. The meeting took place at the Dutch Mission to the United Nations on Sept. 22nd 2016:
[…] Kerry’s off-record conversation was apparently with two dozen ‘Syrian civilians’, all from US backed opposition-linked NGO’s in education and medical groups supposedly working in ‘rebel-held’ (aka terrorist-held) areas in Syria.
This opposition conclave also included ‘rescue workers’ which can only be ambassadors from the White Helmets, a pseudo NGO which serves as Washington and London’s primary PR front in pursuit of a “No Fly Zone’ in Syria, and it’s being bankrolled by the US, UK, EU and other coalition states to the tune of well over $100 million (so far). (link)
When you listen to the audio recording (embedded below) it becomes immediately obvious what was going on in 2014, 2015 and 2016 as an outcome of policy from the White House. In addition, you discover why this jaw-dropping 2016 leak/story was buried by the U.S. media and how it connects to the prior 4 years of perplexing U.S. mid-east policy.
This evidence within this single story would/should forever remove any credibility toward the U.S. foreign policy under President Obama. It also destroys the credibility of a large number of well known republicans, and explains how the prior action has placed President Trump into a precarious position requiring a careful approach.
We know from the Bret Baier interview with Hillary Clinton that she was physically located at her 7th floor office in Washington DC on Sept. 11th 2012, the night of the attack. Unfortunately we also know during the November 2012 Thanksgiving holiday a mysterious fire took place in that building. Well, actually directly above her exact office – cause undetermined.
A “fire” which preceded an unfortunate slip and fall for the Secretary, resulting in a concussion, which led to the discovery of a blood clot, that ultimately delayed her congressional testimony before a Senate Hearing into the events of the night in question.
We know the Libyan uprising began on February 10th of 2011, and we also know that sometime around the end of February 2011 President Obama signed a presidential directive authorizing the State Dept and CIA to begin a covert operation to arm the Libyan “rebels”.
We also know of a Second Presidential Finding Memo authorizing additional CIA covert action in 2012, this time in Syria. However, unlike the 2011 Libyan operation we do not know the operational name of the second action in 2012 Syria.
It would appear, based on constructs from alternate governmental releases, that thankfully the prior AP report is not a surprise to Secretary Rex Tillerson. A readout from a call between British Prime Minister Theresa May and U.S. President Donald Trump provides additional context to absorb the larger, and overarching, ally objectives.
As such it appears the international effort is focused on holding Russian President Vladimir Putin responsible for the actions of Syria’s Bashir Assad. Toward that objective the international leadership is putting an absolute ton of responsibility on U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to be the tip of the spear.
To say all eyes are on T-Rex today would be the understatement of the year. And ahead of his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Vladimir Putin is attempting to avoid the snare by refusing to grant T-Rex an audience. Apparently, based on the action of Putin, Secretary T-Rex is considered a more formidable adversary than former Secretary of State John Kerry.
(Via Reuters) The Kremlin said on Monday that U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will not meet President Vladimir Putin when he visits Moscow on Wednesday, a move that could point to tensions over a U.S. missile attack on a Syrian air base last week.