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MOSCOW — As Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrived here Tuesday with a demand that Moscow back away from the Syrian government, Russian officials said relations with the United States had reached their lowest point since the Cold War.

Following U.S. missile strikes on Syria last week, the foreign ministry said it was concerned that the Trump administration might be considering a similar blow against North Korea.

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And even before Tillerson got off his plane in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin told a news conference the Kremlin has “information” that provocateurs are planning to plant chemical substances in suburban Damascus and blame it on Syrian authorities. He gave no further details on the claim.

But he noted that the situation in Syria reminded him of events in Iraq before the United States invaded in 2003, an allusion to unfounded assertions of weapons of mass destruction that the George W. Bush administration used to justify the war. He also said Western countries divided over the election of President Donald Trump were scapegoating Russia and Syria.