Putin told Tillerson why U.S.-Russian ties in bad state: Kremlin

The spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told a conference call with reporters on Thursday that the tone of the meeting had been "fairly constructive." He said the Russian hope was that Putin's message would be passed on to U.S. President Donald Trump.

He said general agreement was reached at the meeting of the need to keep open lines of communication between Moscow and Washington. Peskov also said Putin had given Tillerson his views on the situation in Syria, and how it was likely to develop.

(Reporting by Christian Lowe; Editing by Alexander Winning)