Pompeo comments on his meeting with Lavrov

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that after the meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Washington that Russia and the U.S. should have a better relationship than they’ve had in the last few years.

"We should have a better relationship, the United States and Russia, than we’ve had in the last few years," he stressed, noting that they’ve been working on that.

The U.S. secretary of state said that he had discussed the issue of arms control between both countries, as well as with China, with Foreign Minister Lavrov. "President Trump, too, is eager to pursue arms control with Russia and with China, we talked about that at great length today," he said.

Pompeo said that the U.S. is ready to consider including France and the UK, not just China, in the nuclear arms control framework. "Foreign Minister Lavrov suggested France and the United Kingdom join as well. We are happy to consider that too," he told reporters.

The U.S. secretary of state also said he and his Russian counterpart discussed North Korea and agreed that both sides have a joint objective to see Pyongyang carry out denuclearization.

"Today, too, we agreed on the final, fully, verified denuclearization of North Korea as our joint objective. I raised the importance of sanctions enforcement with Foreign Minister Lavrov," Sputnik cited him as saying,

The U.S. official expressed hope that the United States and Russia will make a significant trade announcement in the very near future.

"I hope there is some significant progress that we can announce here in just the next short period of time about how we can move our economic relationship forward further," Pompeo said.