The original content of Democracy Now! Headlines appears under the Creative
Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License (United States). For more, including their other
shows and media, visit www.democracynow.org.
May 15, 2019

Pompeo Meets With Lavrov & Putin Over Iran, Venezuela, 2020 Elections
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey
Lavrov in Sochi, Russia, Tuesday where the two discussed issues
including Iran, Venezuela and the 2020 elections. Russia criticized the
U.S. decision to withdraw last year from the landmark 2015 Iran nuclear
deal as tensions between the U.S. and Iran are at their highest since
Trump took office.
On Venezuela, Lavrov again warned the U.S. against any attempts to
overthrow President Nicolás Maduro.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov: "We remember back in 2003, in May, I
suppose, then-President of the United States George Bush Junior from
board of an aircraft-carrier, declared that democracy was established in
Iraq. We remember back in 2011 it was declared that Libyan leader
Muammar Gaddafi had been brought down and that democracy was established
in Libya. I believe I do not need to dwell at length upon today's state
of democracy in Iraq, Libya and a number of other places where such
attempts of overthrowing the regimes were made and nothing good came out
of it."

Pompeo also warned Russia not to interfere in the 2020 U.S. elections,
while Lavrov denied that Russia was involved in any 2016 election
meddling.
Pompeo also met with Russian President Vladimir Putin who hailed the
Mueller report, saying it "confirmed the absence of any collusion
between the U.S. administration and Russia."


.