Rex Tillerson to Lavrov: Russian meddling led to mistrust

Tillerson said Russia had also expressed some willingness to resume talks about the crisis in Ukraine, where a 2015 ceasefire between

Kiev's forces and Russian-backed separatists in the eastern part of the country is regularly violated.

"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 US sanctions against Russia.

The meeting was their first since President Donald Trump reluctantly signed into law the sanctions that Russia said amounted to a full-scale trade war and ended hopes for better ties. Lavrov on Sunday said he believed his US colleagues were ready to continue dialogue with Moscow on complex issues despite tensions.

Tillerson said he discussed Russia's suspected meddling in the 2016 US 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," Tillerson said.

The United States sent its special representative on Ukraine, Kurt Volker, a former US envoy to NATO,

to Ukraine last month to assess the situation in the former Soviet republic. Washington cites the conflict as a key obstacle to improved relations between Russia and the United States.

"We appointed a special envoy to engage with Russia but also coordinating with all parties. This is full visibility to all parties. We are not trying to cut some kind of deal on the side," Tillerson said.

Meanwhile, Tillerson said on Monday that a UN Security Council vote to impose sanctions on North Korea showed that world powers were united behind a push for a denuclearised Korean peninsula.

Washington's top diplomat said Kim Jong-Un's regime must halt ballistic missile tests if it wanted to talk to the United States about resolving the standoff.

"It's quite clear in terms of there being no daylight between the international community as to the expectation that North Korea will take steps to achieve all of my objectives, which is a denuclearised Korean peninsula," he said.

Tillerson held talks in Manila with foreign ministers Wang Yi of China whom he said were in support of a tough stance on Pyongyang's arsenal.

While Wang called for a resumption of dialogue with North Korea, Tillerson insisted Kim must first stop the missile tests.

"The best signal that North Korea could send that they're prepared to talk would be to stop these missile launches," he said, holding out the prospect of US envoys sitting down with Pyongyang's isolated regime.

But he would not set a timeframe on when this might be possible or how long North Korea might have to refrain from testing more long-rang missiles. "We'll know it when we see it," he said. "I'm not going to give someone a specific number of days or weeks. This is really about the spirit of these talks."

The Trump administration has yet to decide how to respond to Russia's move to expel hundreds of American diplomats, but plans to deliver a response to Moscow by September 1, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said today.

A day after sitting down in the Philippines with Russia's top diplomat, Tillerson said he'd asked "clarifying questions" about the Kremlin's retaliation announced last month following new sanctions passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump.

The Trump administration has struggled to determine how the move will affect the US diplomatic presence in Russia, as well as the broader implications for the troubled relationship between the nuclear-armed powers. Despite the Russian move, which seemed to plunge the two countries even further into acrimony, Sergey Lavrov emerged from the meeting declaring a readiness for more engagement with the US on North Korea, Syria and Ukraine, among other issues.