MANILA: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is set to meet Thursday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the Philippines, where he's expected to renew the prospect of the US trying to broker an end to the war in Ukraine.
The meeting between Rubio and Lavrov is slated to occur on the sidelines of a gathering by Southeast Asian foreign ministers, among the most high-profile side meetings the region's top diplomats were having at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations event in Manila.
US efforts to broker an end to the Russia-Ukraine war have dropped off as indirect talks stalled and the Iran war took centre stage. Renewed strikes by Washington and Tehran have been intensifying after an interim ceasefire deal collapsed.
Rubio told reporters in Manila on Wednesday that he plans to raise the conflict in Ukraine with Lavrov, saying that the US remained open to playing a role in ending the conflict “if that opportunity presents itself.”
He acknowledged that those efforts have “kind of fallen off a little bit over the last few months” but said the meeting would explore whether there's an opportunity to renew talks.
“We have to have a relationship with the Russian government, even though we have areas of disagreement,” Rubio said, noting that they are two largest nuclear-armed countries.
Lavrov, speaking to reporters at the ASEAN meeting, said he would ask Rubio about the latest statements by US President Donald Trump predicting that a settlement is getting close.
“I will ask Marco Rubio about it tomorrow,” Lavrov said.
Expectations for renewed discussions about ending the war comes as Ukraine has made significant progress this year but a rift between defense leaders has threatened to derail its efforts. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has undertaken a major government reshuffle, including its top military brass.
But Ukraine would not be the only issue on the table. Rubio said he would use the meeting to find other areas of potential cooperation between the US and Russia — the kind of wide-ranging agenda that the ministers have touched on in their huddles around the ASEAN meeting.
Rubio also had a long meeting Wednesday with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and separately with Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
Rubio told reporters he and Wang discussed a new altercation this week between Chinese and Filipino forces in a disputed shoal in the South China Sea, which Beijing claims virtually in its entirety. Rubio called the incident “escalatory.”
“Those need to be managed very carefully, because obviously, a conflict — be it economic or otherwise — between the US and China would have a dramatic global impact,” Rubio said.
The Trump administration has repeatedly criticised China's assertive actions in the South China Sea to the disadvantage of smaller claimant countries like the Philippines, Washington's oldest treaty ally in Asia. Taiwan and ASEAN members Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei have also been involved in the often-tense territorial standoffs.
Wang protested to Rubio about “recent negative words and actions by the US side,” according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry. It was not clear what he referred to, but Trump recently accused China of meddling in the 2020 election and the US administration shortened visas for Chinese journalists.
Wang said China and the US were “preparing the upcoming high-level exchanges,” referring to Xi's visit to the US in September, according to a statement from the official Xinhua News Agency.
ASEAN foreign ministers discussed the territorial disputes Tuesday, welcoming progress in yearslong negotiations between China and their regional bloc on a proposed non-aggression pact that both sides hope to conclude this year, according to a draft of a joint communique seen by The Associated Press.
The so-called code of conduct aims to prevent a major conflict in the disputed waters, a key global trade route, that could draw in the United States.