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The White House said Trump\u2019s opposition stemmed from the bill\u2019s failure to grant the president sufficient flexibility on when to lift sanctions. Trump\u2019s critics saw his objections as one more sign that he is too eager to pursue closer ties to Russia, or to protect the former Cold War foe from penalties designed to punish Moscow for its actions in Ukraine, election meddling and other troublesome behavior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A U.S. Justice Department investigation is moving ahead into Russia\u2019s election interference and potential Trump campaign collusion. Trump denies any collusion and has repeatedly questioned U.S. intelligence about Moscow\u2019s involvement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the same time, Trump\u2019s administration has argued there\u2019s good reason for the U.S. to seek a more productive relationship. Tillerson has cited modest signs of progress in Syria, where the U.S. and Russia recently brokered a cease-fire in the war-torn country\u2019s southwest, as a sign there\u2019s fertile ground for cooperation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Syrian cease-fire reflected a return of U.S.-Russia cooperation to lower violence there. The U.S. had looked warily at a series of safe zones in Syria that Russia had negotiated along with Turkey and Iran \u2014 but not the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lavrov cited upcoming talks involving Russia, Iran and Turkey about how to ensure the truce in the last safe zone to be established, around the north-western city of Idlib. He predicted \u201cit will be difficult\u201d to hammer out the details but that compromise can be reached if all parties \u2014 including the U.S. \u2014 use their influence in Syria to persuade armed groups there to comply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Associated Press writer Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Russia\u2019s top diplomat said Sunday his country was ready for more engagement with the United States on North Korea, Syria, Ukraine and other pressing matters, even as Moscow braced for new sanctions from the Trump administration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":47572,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":8,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[8,12,68],"tags":[],"coauthors":[795],"class_list":["post-23027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flashpoints","category-news","category-pentagon-congress"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"JR54WN2SGFHZNNZE32ARYPGIEE","arc_canonical_url":"\/flashpoints\/2017\/08\/06\/russia-ready-for-more-engagement-with-us-despite-sanctions\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n