President Trump is expected to talk Tuesday with Russia President Vladimir Putin about the future of Syria, a White House official said.
The call comes after Mr. Putin met in Russia with Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Russia was the chief ally of the Assad regime in a more than six-year civil war in which the U.S. backed anti-Assad rebels. Trump administration in August also used missile strikes against one of the regime’s chemical weapons depots.
The civil war sparked the largest refugee crisis since World War II, 5.1 million people fleeing Syria
Mr. Trump’s attempts to work with Mr. Putin to end the bloodshed in Syria has been complicated by Congress and Justice Department probes into allegations Trump campaign officials colluded with Moscow to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
At the meeting with Mr. Assad in the Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi on Monday, Mr. Putin praised Syria for fighting “terrorists.”
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“Syria is striving in the fight against terrorist groups,” Mr. Putin said, according to a report in the Kremlin-linked news site Sputnik. “The Syrian people are going through very difficult trials and are gradually approaching the final, unavoidable rout of terrorists.”
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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