Новини

An economist and political novice, Gitanas Nauseda, took a thin lead in the first round of Lithuania’s presidential election on Sunday and will face Ingrida Simonyte, a conservative ex-finance minister, in a May 26 run-off set to focus on inequality and poverty in the Baltic eurozone state.

Center-left Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis vowed to quit after he was eliminated from the run-off having finished in third place.

Conceding that “the failure to get into the second round is an assessment of me as a politician,” Skvernelis told reporters that he would “step down on July 12.”

He did not rule out early elections. The next regularly-scheduled parliamentary elections are due in October 2020.

Nauseda, promising to seek the political middle-ground and build a welfare state, won 31.07 percent of the vote, according to near-complete official results.

“I want to thank all the people who took to their hearts our message that we want a welfare state in Lithuania and we want more political peace,” Nauseda told reporters in Vilnius.

The 54-year-old is seeking to bridge the growing rich-poor divide in the former Soviet republic of 2.8 million people, which joined the European Union and NATO in 2004.

“Nauseda has a greater chance to attract votes that went to other candidates, especially from the left,” Vilnius University analyst Ramunas Vilpisauskas told AFP. 

In all, nine candidates ran in the first round vote.

In second place, Simonyte, who is popular with wealthy, educated urban voters, garnered 29.46 percent of the vote while resonating with the rural poor, Skvernelis’s populist approach secured 20.72 percent support.

Simonyte, 44, a technocrat who also warns against deepening inequality and the rural-urban divide, has vowed to reduce it by boosting growth further. 

Socially liberal, Simonyte supports same-sex partnerships which still stir controversy in the predominantly Catholic country.

​Simonyte said she would resist “populism” during her second-round campaign and seek support from political forces “with consistent views that do not try to be on the right with one leg and the left with the other.” 

Lithuanian presidents steer defense and foreign policy, attending EU and NATO summits, but must consult with the government and the prime minister on appointing the most senior officials.

Popular incumbent President Dalia Grybauskaite, an independent in her second consecutive term, must step down due to term limits.

The politician nicknamed the “Iron Lady” for her strong resolve has been tipped as a contender to be the next president of the European Council.

Both Nauseda and Simonyte are strong supporters of EU and NATO membership as bulwarks against neighboring Russia, especially since Moscow’s 2014 military intervention in Ukraine.

Analyst Vilpisauskas said that both Nauseda and Simonyte are very likely to opt for continuity in foreign and defense policy.

“With Nauseda, there can be some tactical changes when it comes to communication with neighbors but the strategical line is unlikely to change.”

Although Lithuanian presidents do not directly craft economic policy, bread and butter issues and tackling corruption dominated the campaign.

Lithuania is struggling with a sharp decline in population owing to mass emigration to Western Europe by people seeking better opportunities. 

The global financial crisis triggered a deep recession 10 years ago and austerity measures imposed to prevent further crisis took a high toll, especially on low-income earners.

Despite solid economic growth, a recent EU report noted that almost 30 percent of Lithuanians “are at risk of poverty or social exclusion” and that this risk is “nearly double” in rural areas.

Robust annual wage growth of around 10 percent has raised the average gross monthly salary to 970 euros ($1,00) but poverty and income inequality remain among the highest in the EU, largely due to weak progressive taxation.

Unemployment stood at 6.5 percent in the first quarter of 2019, and the economy is forecast to grow by 2.7 percent this year, well above an average of 1.1 percent in the 19-member eurozone.

Brussels has urged Vilnius to use solid growth fueled mostly by consumption to broaden its tax base and spend more on social policies.

Nauseda voter Feliksas Markevicius said he wanted the new president to help emigrants to return home to Lithuania.

“We need to improve living conditions because many people are forced to work abroad,” the pensioner told AFP after voting in Vilnius on Sunday.

Voter turnout was 54.96 percent, according to the Central Elections Commission.
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Pope Francis’ almoner, a church leader who personally distributes charity in the name of the Vatican, took action to restore electricity to about 450 people in Rome.

Cardinal Konrad Krajewski broke into an abandoned government building where 450 homeless people are living.

Authorities cut off power and water to the building last week because of an unpaid bill reported to be more than $300,000. 

Krajewski ignored the possible legal consequences when he broke the police seal on the building, went underground, and flipped a switch to turn the lights back on in the darkened building.

A nun who works with the homeless told Italian radio and television that when workers went to the building to cut off the power again, they found a note from the cardinal asking them to leave it on.

Krajewski called his act “a gesture of desperation.”
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Spanish authorities say 52 migrants have climbed a guarded fence to gain entry into Spain’s North African enclave of Melilla from Morocco.

An official with the Spanish Interior Ministry in Melilla says four police officer and one migrant sustained light injuries as the group scaled the high fence around dawn Sunday.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity, in line with government rules.

Spain’s proximity to North Africa has made it a target for migrants trying to reach the European Union. The migrants try to get in either by land via Spain’s two North African enclaves or by crossing the Mediterranean Sea in small boats.

Spain became the leading entry point to Europe last year, with some 60,000 migrants arriving irregularly, almost all of them by sea.
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Berliners on Sunday celebrated the 70th anniversary of the day the Soviets lifted their blockade strangling West Berlin in the post-World War II years with a big party at the former Tempelhof airport in the German capital.

Among the invited guests of honor was 98-year-old U.S. pilot Gail Halvorsen, who dropped hundreds of boxes of candy on tiny parachutes into West Berlin during the blockade.

Halvorsen came to Berlin from Utah with his two daughters on Friday, the German news agency dpa reported.

On Saturday, a baseball field at Tempelhof airport was named after him — the “Gail S. Halvorsen Park — Home of the Berlin Braves” in honor of his help for Berliners during the Cold War.

Dressed in a military uniform, Halvorsen told Berlin’s mayor Michael Mueller that “it’s good to be home.”

The airlift began on June 26, 1948, in an ambitious plan to feed and supply West Berlin after the Soviets — one of the four occupying powers of a divided Berlin after World War II — blockaded the city in an attempt to squeeze the U.S., Britain and France out of the enclave within Soviet-occupied eastern Germany.

Allied pilots flew a total of 278,000 flights to Berlin, carrying about 2.3 million tons of food, coal, medicine and other supplies.

On the operation’s busiest day, April 16, 1949, about 1,400 planes carried in nearly 13,000 tons over 24 hours — an average of one plane touching down almost every minute.

On the ground in Berlin, ex-Luftwaffe mechanics were enlisted to help maintain aircraft, and some 19,000 Berliners, almost half of them women, worked around the clock for three months to build Tegel Airport, providing a crucial relief for the British Gatow and American Tempelhof airfields.

Finally, on May 12, 1949, the Soviets realized the blockade was futile and lifted their barricades. The airlift continued for several more months, however, as a precaution in case the Soviets changed their minds.

Halvorsen is probably the best known of the airlift pilots, thanks to an inadvertent propaganda coup born out of good will. Early in the airlift, he shared two sticks of gum with starving Berlin children and saw others sniffing the wrappers just for a hint of the flavor.

Touched, he told the children to come back the next day, when he would drop them candy, using handkerchiefs as parachutes.

He started doing it regularly, using his own candy ration. Soon other pilots and crews joined in what would be dubbed “Operation Little Vittles.”

After an Associated Press story appeared under the headline “Lollipop Bomber Flies Over Berlin,” a wave of candy and handkerchief donations followed.

To this day, the airlift still shapes many Germans’ views of the Western allies, especially in Berlin. After the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. in 2001, some 200,000 Berliners took to the streets of the German capital to show their support for the country that had helped prevent their city falling completely to the Soviets.

On Sunday, up to 50,000 people were expected to participate in the festivities, which include musical performances, talks with witnesses, exhibitions of historical vehicles and lots of activities for children, dpa reported.
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov this week, as the two countries clash over a number of issues including Venezuela, Iran, and Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.

Pompeo heads to Moscow Sunday, in his first visit to Russia as chief U.S. diplomat.

Top U.S. officials, including Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence, have accused Russia of working against Venezuela’s democratically elected opposition leader Juan Guaido in his attempts to oust embattled President Nicolas Maduro.

The United States accuses Russia of seeking a foothold in the Western Hemisphere through Venezuela.

“We are concerned about Russia’s actions in Venezuela, and we think the support for Maduro is a losing bet. So our support to the Venezuelan people continues, and that will be a subject for the discussion,” a senior State Department official told reporters last week.

Pompeo arrives in Russia on Monday to meet with American diplomats at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow before meeting with U.S. business leaders. He will also lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, in honor of those who fought against the Nazi regime.

The secretary of state will then travel to Sochi Tuesday for talks with Putin and Lavrov.

Pompeo’s trip comes a few weeks ahead of a G-20 summit meeting in Osaka, Japan, which both U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Putin will attend.

“It is in our interest to have a better relationship with Russia,” said the senior official. “When we have concerns, we’re going to raise them directly, narrow those differences and find areas we can cooperate.”

The official declined to comment on whether a meeting between Trump and Putin on the sidelines of the G-20 summit is being arranged.

The State Department says Pompeo is expected to bring up Americans being detained in Russia, including former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan and Michael Calvey, founder of the Moscow-based Baring Vostok private equity group.

Whelan was accused of espionage, a charge he denies. He is due to be kept in pre-trial detention until May 28 while the investigation continues.

Calvey was detained in February, pending a trial on embezzlement charges that he has denied. He says the case was being used to pressure him in a corporate dispute over control of a Russian bank.

“The administration places the highest priority on the safety and the welfare of U.S. citizens overseas. We stand ready to provide all appropriate consular services in cases where U.S. citizens are detained,” said the senior official.

Last month, U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman visited Whelan in a Moscow jail. American diplomats have asked Russia to “stop playing games,” saying Russian officials are likely trying to get a forced false “confession” from Whelan.

Pompeo’s trip to Russia also comes as tensions simmer between the two countries over Iran.

The U.S. is strengthening its military presence in the Middle East in what officials said was a “direct response to a number of troubling and escalatory indicators and warnings” from Iran.

The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group and four B-52 bombers have arrived in the Middle East in response to concerns Iran may be planning an attack against American targets.

On Wednesday, Lavrov asked Pompeo to use diplomacy instead of threats to solve issues after Lavrov’s talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarifin Moscow.
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Thousands of Polish nationalists have marched to the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, protesting that the U.S. is putting pressure on Poland to compensate Jews whose families lost property during the Holocaust.

The protesters included far-right groups and their supporters. They said the United States has no right to interfere in Polish affairs and that the U.S. government is putting “Jewish interests” over the interests of Poland.

The nationalists say that Poland was a major victim of Nazi Germany during World War II and that it is not fair to ask Poland to compensate Jewish victims when Poland has never received adequate compensation from Germany.

“Why should we have to pay money today when nobody gives us anything?” said 22-year-old Kamil Wencwel. “Americans only think about Jewish and not Polish interests.”

 
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The final preparatory meeting for next year’s review of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty ended Friday with deep divisions, and U.S. Ambassador Robert Wood said reaching agreement at the 2020 conference “will be an incredibly difficult task.”

But he told the closing session of the two-week preparatory conference that “it is a task we cannot abandon.”

The NPT is the world’s single most important pact on nuclear arms, credited with preventing their spread to dozens of nations since entering into force in 1970.

It has succeeded in doing this via a grand global bargain: Nations without nuclear weapons committed not to acquire them; those with them committed to move toward their elimination; and all endorsed everyone’s right to develop peaceful nuclear energy.

‘Significant challenges’

Treaty members — every nation but India, Pakistan and North Korea, who possess nuclear weapons, and Israel, which is believed to be a nuclear power but has never acknowledged it — gather every five years to review how it’s working. They try to agree on new approaches to problems, not by updating the treaty, which is difficult, but by trying to adopt a consensus final document calling for steps outside the treaty to advance its goals.

Malaysia’s U.N. Ambassador Syed Mohd Hasrin Tengku Hussin, chair of the third preparatory conference, told a news conference Friday that delegates “do not agree on everything but remain committed to full implementation” of the NPT, and talked about “how to accelerate measures to a nuclear-free world.”

Citing “significant challenges,” he noted that the meeting took place “at a time of increasing international tension and deteriorating relationships between those countries that possess nuclear weapons” — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France.

Hussin also singled out differences between nuclear weapon and non-nuclear weapon states on disarmament.

Iran ‘completely frustrated’

Iranian delegate Bahram Shahaboddin said in a closing statement that non-nuclear weapon states “are completely frustrated by the 50-year lack of progress on nuclear disarmament,” and continuing delaying tactics by the nuclear powers.

“We must not allow this to happen again. In 2020, we must say loud and clear enough is enough,” he said, singling out the United States for spending $1.2 trillion on its nuclear arsenal and “brazenly” threatening non-nuclear weapon states with nuclear weapons.

Hussin said delegates did agree on the agenda, procedures and president of the review conference — Argentina’s Ambassador to Austria Rafael Grossi — so in 2020 they can concentrate on substance.

Delegates to the preparatory conference rejected two sets of recommendations for the review conference so Hussin issued a final document called “reflections of the chair.”

It says “there remain many more points of convergence in the views of states parties than there are divergences.”

He stressed that “continued geopolitical challenges” underline the need to maintain the NPT as the cornerstone of nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation.

But he said: “There remain differing views on the implementation of the disarmament pillar, and these views need to be reconciled for there to be considered a balance as a whole” with the other pillars on nonproliferation and nuclear energy.

Rebecca Johnson, a security analyst and founding president of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons which won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize, said: “The real questions for 2020 are going to be about the nuclear risks and treaties under threat from a few narcissistic leaders who are pulling out of them in order to keep proliferating and deploying nuclear weapons.”

“Their dangerous actions undermine not only the NPT … which we need to protect humanity from nuclear war, but climate catastrophes that threaten security for all of us,” she told AP.
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The shake-of-the-hands in front of the media on a blustery, wet spring morning in central London outside the official residence of British Foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt was friendly. America’s secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and Hunt joked about the weather.

Pompeo, on his first official visit to London as U.S. Secretary of State, had come to reaffirm the “special relationship” between Britain and the U.S., he said. “The special relationship does not simply endure, it is thriving,” Pompeo announced at a news conference midweek following meetings with British counterpart Hunt and British Prime Minister Theresa May.

But for all the bonhomie, and later, at a research organization event, banter about how the first-born son of Prince Harry and his American bride Meghan Markle is the latest example of Anglo-American cooperation, Pompeo’s trip was anything but routine. The visit exposed strains in a relationship that is being buffeted by sharp disagreements over policy toward Iran and Britain’s dealings with China.

China’s Huawei

America’s top diplomat delivered a blunt public warning in London about doing business with China and specifically about using the technology of Chinese telecom giant Huawei to develop Britain’s fifth-generation (5G) wireless network. He urged Britain to rethink its provisional decision to allow Huawei to have a role in building the network, warning that China wants “to divide Western alliances through bits and bytes, not bullets and bombs.”

U.S. officials fear Beijing will use Huawei, which ultimately is answerable to the Chinese government, to eavesdrop and to sweep up data passing through Britain’s 5G network. The prospect is alarming to U.S. security agencies. They fear Chinese spies will be able to penetrate American networks and even capture intelligence shared with Britain. 

Pompeo emphasized that if Britain uses Huawei’s pioneering technology for its 5G network, it would be putting at risk the longstanding intelligence-sharing arrangement it has with Washington — the rock on which the special relationship is built. 

“Insufficient security will impede the United States’ ability to share certain information within trusted networks. This is just what China wants — to divide western alliances,” Pompeo warned.

British politicians have reacted cautiously to the U.S. threat to curtail intelligence sharing, an unusually overt warning for an American diplomat to deliver on British soil. They say they think they can square the circle — have Huawei participate in the development of parts of the next generation mobile network but in a way that answers U.S. security objections.

Britain has said it is planning to allow the Chinese telecom giant to participate in a limited role in developing the 5G network. Officials talk about ensuring that Huawei’s participation is kept in non-core areas. The decision was made by Prime Minister May, over the objections of her security and defense chiefs.

On Thursday, in an interview with a Chinese media outlet, the country’s finance minister, Philip Hammond, downplayed U.S. worries, saying, “[Huawei] has responded very positively and confirmed that it is willing and able to address those concerns and ensure that those security defects are corrected for the future. So we’re very pleased about that.”

A former British foreign minister, and onetime chairman of the British parliament’s intelligence committee, Malcolm Rifkind, told Britain’s Sky News that disagreements between British and U.S. leaders aren’t unusual.

“There’s nothing new about that,” he said. “Margaret Thatcher had rows with Ronald Reagan, John Major with Bill Clinton. It is the normal situation between friends. Occasionally you disagree.”

He believes there’s a work-around, pointing out that Huawei has been highly involved in Britain’s current 4G network and its role is monitored by a team of British intelligence operatives “to make sure there’s no mischief.”

Deals with China

Monitoring, though, may not be enough to assuage U.S. worries, says a former senior counter-intelligence officer, who served in the agency’s clandestine service for 33 years and asked not to be named in this article. He says there’s increasing alarm in U.S. intelligence circles about Britain’s readiness to accommodate China, a rising power seen in Washington as determined to weaken Western alliances. 

“The Chinese don’t distinguish between commerce, politics and espionage — it is all the same for them,” he said. “The British are not on their guard enough, partly that’s because they’re desperate to get a major post-Brexit trade deal from Beijing and they don’t want to do anything that might wreck that from happening,” he added.

Britain is now the top European destination for direct investment from China, and some former and current U.S. intelligence officials worry the British are failing to scrutinize thoroughly business and infrastructure deals involving Chinese companies.

China is building nuclear power plants in Britain, and Chinese companies are being encouraged by the British government to bid for contracts to build and manage HS2, a high-speed railway that, when completed, will directly link London, Birmingham, the East Midlands, Leeds and Manchester. 

If Britain does give Huawei even a limited role in building its future 5G network, the fallout would be similar to a major spy scandal, the former counterintelligence officer said. “Think Kim Philby,” he said, citing the top British spy who was unmasked in 1963 as a double agent for Russia’s KGB spy agency and whose betrayal undermined American trust in British intelligence for decades. 

“Even if there’s no formal decision to curtail intelligence-sharing, the consequence will be felt all the way down the line. People at Langley and in other [intelligence] agencies will have doubts and will start withholding information by not uploading it to databases the British can access,” he added.

Britain is a key member of the so-called Five Eyes alliance, the U.S.-led Anglophone intelligence pact also linking Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Norman Roule, who was in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations for 34 years, and served as a division chief and chief of station, says “the U.S. intelligence relationship with the British is the closest on the planet.”

“We share so much information with each other, and it’s shared so deeply and immediately that if we have a difference of views, it’s usually because one of us hasn’t gotten around to seeing the other’s file yet,” he added. He says on the Huawei issue, the British security agencies “don’t have a different view than that of the United States.”

He predicts there were will be weeks of technical discussions.

“The devil will be in the details,” he said. “The question will be, ‘Can you take some of Huawei’s technology and put it in places where it doesn’t matter and still guarantee security?'” 
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France welcomed Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg on Friday with a threat of sweeping new regulation.

With Facebook under fire on multiple fronts, Zuckerberg is in Paris to show that his social media giant is working hard to limit violent extremism and hate speech shared online.

But a group of French regulators and experts who spent weeks inside Facebook facilities in Paris, Dublin and Barcelona say the company isn’t working hard enough.

Just before Zuckerberg met French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris, the 10 officials released a report calling for laws allowing the government to investigate and fine social networks that don’t take responsibility for the content that makes them money.

The French government wants the legislation to serve as a model for Europe-wide management of social networks. Several countries have introduced similar legislation, some tougher than what France is proposing.

To an average user, it seems like the problem is intractable. Mass shootings are live-streamed, and online mobs are spreading rumors that lead to deadly violence. Facebook is even inadvertently creating celebratory videos using extremist content and auto-generating business pages for the likes of the Islamic State group and al Qaida.

The company says it is working on solutions, and the French regulators praised Facebook for hiring more people and using artificial intelligence to track and crack down on dangerous content.

But they said Facebook didn’t provide the French officials enough information about its algorithms to judge whether they were working, and that a “lack of transparency … justifies an intervention of public authorities.”

The regulators recommended legally requiring a “duty of care” for big social networks, meaning they should moderate hate speech published on their platforms. They insist that any law should respect freedom of expression, but did not explain how Facebook should balance those responsibilities in practice.

After meeting Macron, Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post that he welcomed governments taking a more active role in drawing up regulations for the internet. He made similar remarks earlier this year but has been vague on what kind of regulation he favors.

Facebook faces “nuanced decisions” involving content that is harmful but not illegal and the French recommendations, which set guidelines for what’s considered harmful, “would create a more consistent approach across the tech industry and ensure companies are held accountable for enforcing standards against this content,” Zuckerberg said.

The regulators acknowledged that their research didn’t address violent content shared on private chat groups or encrypted apps, or on groups like 4chan or 8chan, where criminals and extremists and those concerned about privacy increasingly turn to communicate.

Facebook said Zuckerberg is in France as part of meetings around Europe to discuss future regulation of the internet. Facebook agreed to embed the French regulators as an effort to jointly develop proposals to fight online hate content.

Zuckerberg’s visit comes notably amid concern about hate speech and disinformation around this month’s European Parliament elections.

Next week, the leaders of France and New Zealand will meet tech leaders in Paris for a summit seeking to ban acts of violent extremism and terrorism from being shown online.

Facebook has faced challenges over privacy and security lapses and accusations of endangering democracy — and it came under criticism this week from its own co-founder.

Chris Hughes said in a New York Times opinion piece Thursday that it’s time to break up Facebook. He says Zuckerberg has turned Facebook into an innovation-suffocating monopoly and lamented the company’s “slow response to Russian agents, violent rhetoric and fake news.”
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Leading Western industrial powers will for the first time jointly simulate a major cross-border cybersecurity attack on the financial sector next month, French officials said on Friday.

The exercise, organized by the French central bank under France’s presidency of the Group of Seven nations (G7), will be based on the scenario of a technical component widely used in the financial sector becoming infected with malware, said Nathalie Aufauvre, the Bank of France’s director general for financial stability.

Institutions such as the European Central Bank and the Bank of England have already conducted such tests, but the June exercise will be the first across borders at the G7 level,

Aufauvre told a cybersecurity conference at the bank. “Cyber threats are proof that we need more multilateralism and more cooperation between our countries,” French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told the conference.

Aufauvre said the three-day exercise aimed to demonstrate the cross-border effects of such an attack, and would involve 24 financial authorities from the seven countries, comprising central banks, market authorities and finance ministries.

Representatives of the private sector in France, Italy Germany and Japan will also participate.

The financial sector is the most common target of cyberattacks, accounting for 19 percent of the total, according to a recent study by IBM.

Many countries have in recent years stepped up oversight of banks and insurers’ capacity to respond.

However, financial regulators in countries such as France and Germany say that requirements in some countries outside the G7 are less onerous, creating an incentive for firms to move operations there to cut costs.
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is set to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov next week, as the two countries clash over a number of issues including Venezuela, Iran and Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.

Pompeo departs March 12 for Moscow, in his first visit to Russia as chief U.S. diplomat.

Top U.S. officials, including Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence, have accused Russia of working against Venezuela’s democratically elected opposition leader Juan Guaido in his attempts to oust embattled President Nicolas Maduro.

The United States accuses Russia of seeking a foothold in the Western Hemisphere through Venezuela.

“We are concerned about Russia’s actions in Venezuela, and we think the support for Maduro is a losing bet. So our support to the Venezuelan people continues, and that will be a subject for the discussion,” a senior State Department official told reporters Friday.

Pompeo will arrive in Russia on May 13 to meet with American diplomats at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow before meeting with U.S. business leaders. He will also lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, in honor of those who fought against the Nazi regime.

The secretary of state will then travel to Sochi on March 14 for talks with Putin and Lavrov.

Pompeo’s trip comes a few weeks ahead of a G-20 summit meeting in Osaka, Japan, which both U.S. President Donald Trump and Putin will attend.

“It is in our interest to have a better relationship with Russia,” said the senior official. “When we have concerns, we’re going to raise them directly, narrow those differences and find areas we can cooperate.”

The official declined to comment on whether a meeting between Trump and Putin on the sidelines of the G-20 summit is being arranged.

Detained Americans

The State Department says Pompeo is expected to bring up Americans being detained in Russia, including former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan and Michael Calvey, founder of the Moscow-based Baring Vostok private equity group.

Whelan was accused of espionage, a charge he denies. He is due to be kept in pre-trial detention until May 28 while the investigation continues.

Calvey was detained in February, pending a trial on embezzlement charges that he has denied. He says the case was being used to pressure him in a corporate dispute over control of a Russian bank.

“The administration places the highest priority on the safety and the welfare of U.S. citizens overseas. We stand ready to provide all appropriate consular services in cases where U.S. citizens are detained,” said the senior official.

On April 30, U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman visited Whelan in a Moscow jail. American diplomats have asked Russia to “stop playing games,” saying Russian officials are likely trying to get a forced false “confession” from Whelan.

​Tension over Iran

Pompeo’s trip to Russia also comes as tensions simmer between the two countries over Iran.

The U.S. is strengthening its military presence in the Middle East in what officials said was a “direct response to a number of troubling and escalatory indicators and warnings” from Iran.

The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group and four B-52 bombers have arrived in the Middle East in response to concerns Iran may be planning an attack against American targets.

Wednesday, Lavrov asked Pompeo to use diplomacy instead of threats to solve issues after Lavrov’s talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Moscow.
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