Saturday, May 11, 2019
Associated Press
WASHINGTON
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will head to Russia next week for talks with President Vladimir Putin amid heightened U.S.-Russia tensions over the crisis in Venezuela and the Trump administration’s hardline policy on Iran, the State Department said Friday.
Pompeo’s meeting with Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday in the Black Sea resort of Sochi will be the highest-level face-to-face talks between the former Cold War foes since the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Putin and President Donald Trump spoke at length by phone last week, and Pompeo saw Lavrov earlier this week in Finland.