Marko Rubio met with Sergey Lavrov in Kuala Lumpur on the sidelines of a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which also includes Australia, China, the EU, Japan, Russia and South Korea.

The two diplomats had spoken by phone several times in the recent past and had met for the first time during the Russian-American talks in Riyadh in February. At that time, the two sides agreed to start work on normalizing bilateral relations.

Earlier, the US secretary of state, on his first visit to Asia since taking office, assured his ASEAN counterparts that the US has no intention of abandoning the Asia-Pacific region.

Rubio‘s visit to Malaysia is part of efforts to refocus US attention on the Indo-Pacific region, beyond the conflicts in the Middle East and Europe that have been of primary concern to Washington.

“It is our view, and our strong view, and our reality that this century and the next, the history of the next 50 years will be largely written here, in this region, in this part of the world,” Rubio told his ASEAN counterparts. “When I hear (…) that maybe the attention of the US or the world might be distracted by events in other parts of the world, I would say that is impossible,” he added.

However, US President Donald Trump’s tariff war may cast a shadow on this trip of Rubio’s, as the Republican announced the imposition of high tariffs against seven ASEAN member countries and against close US allies such as Japan and South Korea from August 1.