Rubio, Lavrov discuss Ukraine war as China defends military moves

From left, Vietnam’s Foreign Minister Le Hoai Trung, South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun, Japan’s Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, Philippine Foreign Secretary Theresa Lazaro, China’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Hua Chunying and Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan during the 27th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Pasay City, Metro Manila, Philippines, yesterday [AP Photo]

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov yesterday in the Philippines for talks where he was expected to renew the prospect of the U.S. trying to broker an end to the war in Ukraine.

The U.S. State Department offered few details about the meeting on the sidelines of an annual gathering by foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Manila. “They discussed the U.S.-Russia relationship and the need to end the Russia-Ukraine war,” a State Department spokesperson said.

Lavrov largely ignored questions from reporters but the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow said he emphasized to Rubio “the unacceptability of further arming” Ukraine and “the destabilizing policies of European countries, which continue to seek a ‘strategic defeat’ for Russia.”

Lavrov reiterated Russia’s readiness for “a political and diplomatic resolution of the conflict” and commitment to agreements reached at a summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump in Alaska last year, the Russian ministry said.

The two leaders also discussed “the situation in the Persian Gulf,” the resumption of contacts between NASA and Russia’s space agency Roscosmos and the operation of embassies on both sides, the ministry said.

ASEAN talks focused on international conflicts

Three days of closed-door talks that started Tuesday have focused on the resurgent war in the Middle East, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and, closer to home, the South China Sea, where a new clash flared yesterday.

U.S. efforts to broker an end to the Russia-Ukraine war have dropped off as indirect talks stalled and the Iran war took center 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 planned to raise the conflict in Ukraine with Lavrov, saying that the U.S. 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 they are the two largest nuclear-armed countries.

Lavrov, speaking to reporters earlier, said he would ask Rubio about the latest statements by Trump predicting that a settlement is getting close.

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 U.S. and Russia — the kind of wide-ranging agenda that the ministers have touched on in their huddles around the ASEAN meeting.

China defends maritime military actions

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong renewed her country’s alarm over the Chinese navy’s recent test-launch of a missile from a nuclear-powered submarine in the region, which she said “came with too little information and notification, including to the Philippines — over which the missile flew — and Pacific nations, near where the missile landed.”

“It comes in the context of a rapid military build-up of China’s nuclear arsenal without the transparency or reassurance the region expects,” Wong told a university forum in Manila on Thursday. “This is why Australia has described the test as provocative and destabilizing.”

China has defended its actions, saying the launch was part of annual exercises and that it gave countries in the area appropriate notice in advance.

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 U.S. and China would have a dramatic global impact,” Rubio said.

In Beijing, the Chinese coast guard said it took necessary measures, including monitoring and blocking, to drive away two Philippine ships that disregarded repeated warnings from the Chinese side in a confrontation on Thursday.

China said its operations were professional and lawful and urged the Philippines to stop its provocative actions infringing on Chinese territory. Philippine officials did not immediately issue a comment.

The Trump administration has repeatedly criticized 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.

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 communiqué 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. MICHELLE L. PRICE & JIM GOMEZ, MANILA, MDT/AP