U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said he believes Washington and Russia can find a way to ease tension, saying it wouldn't be useful to cut ties over the single issue of suspected Russian meddling in the U.S. election.
Tillerson said Russia had also expressed some willingness to resume talks about the crisis in Ukraine. "We should find places we can work together... In places we have differences we're going to have to continue to find ways to address those," Tillerson told reporters.
Tillerson met his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, on the sidelines of an international gathering in Manila on Sunday, where he also asked about Moscow's retaliation to new U.S. sanctions against Russia.
Tillerson said he discussed Russia's suspected meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election with Lavrov to "help them understand how serious this incident had been and how seriously it damaged the relationship" between the two nations. But Tillerson said that should not irreversibly damage ties.
"The fact that we want to work with them on areas that are of serious national security interest to us, and at the same time having this extraordinary issue of mistrust that divides us, that is just what we in the diplomatic part of our relationship are required to do," Reuters cited Tillerson as saying.
