In an attempt to alleviate the tension between the United States and Russia, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who is on an official visit to Moscow, said Berlin would try to facilitate a meeting between President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, during next week’s G20 summit that will be held in the city of Hamburg. “Of course we all hope the Russian president and the American president come into direct talks because many of the world conflicts that we need to tackle are only finally tackled if both countries have threads of discussion with each other. That is our hope. We suppose that it will be a success to get a mutual agenda there, for example with an issue of climate protection, we talked about that today,” German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gavriel said.
The tension between Moscow and Washington reached an all-time low, when the White House issued a warning to Syria’s government of President Bashar Assad over its military’s reported preparation to possibly conduct a chemical attack against rebels. Russia, which supports Assad’s regime, responded to the American threat by warning that it would respond to a preemptive strike against Syria’s military, raising concerns of a possible frontal conflagration between the two super powers.