The US and Russian leaders opened an historic summit in Helsinki, with Donald Trump promising an “extraordinary relationship” and Vladimir Putin saying it was high time to thrash out disputes around the world.
/ AFP PHOTO / Yuri KADOBNOV
(Eagle News) — Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed the importance of Russia and the United States “working together” saying that this was the only way to cope with a new set of global challenges, including threats of terrorism and transnational crime, and rising problems on the economy.
In a news conference after his historic summit with US President Donald Trump in Helsinki, Putin said his negotiations with Trump “took place in a frank and businesslike atmosphere.”
“I think we can call it a success and a very fruitful round of negotiations. We carefully analyzed the current status, the present and the future of the Russia-United States’ relationship — key issues of the global agenda,” he said.
The meeting between Putin and Trump at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki was the first official meeting between the two controversial world leaders after previous unofficial talks at the G20 in Hamburg and the APEC Vietnam summits last year.
The Russian leader said that both the US and Russia face a “whole new set of challenges” that both countries should address by joining ranks and working together.
He said these challenges include a “dangerous maladjustment of mechanisms for maintaining international security and stability, regional crises, the creeping threats of terrorism and transnational crime, the snowballing problems in the economy, environmental risks and other sets of challenges.”
“We can only cope with these challenges if we join the ranks and work together, hopefully we will reach this understanding with our American partners,” he said.
“Today’s negotiations reflected our joint wish, our joint wish with President Trump to redress this negative situation in the bilateral relationship, outline the first steps for improving this relationship to restore the acceptable level of trust and going back to the previous level of interaction on all mutual interests issues,” Putin explained in a news conference.
The Trump-Putin summit pushed through despite calls from several US lawmakers for the US President to cancel the one-on-one meeting with the Russian leader.
It also came after US Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the former FBI director, indicted 12 Russian military intelligence agency officers for allegedly hacking the campaign of Hillary Clinton.
Putin said Trump also told him about this in their meeting.
– No Russian interference in US elections, Putin insists-
“Once again, President Trump mentioned the issue of the so-called interference of Russia when the American elections and I had to reiterate things I said several times, including during our personal contacts that the Russian state has never interfered and is not going to interfere in the internal American affairs, including the election process,” he said.
“Any specific material, if such things arise, we are ready to analyze together.,” Putin said.
The Russian President also suggested studying this through a “joint working group on cyber security” the establishment of which, he said, had already been “discussed during our previous contacts.”
-Improving US-Russia relations-
In his speech to the press, Putin said that the US-Russia bilateral relationship should be further improved despite it going through a “complicated stage.”
“It’s quite clear to everyone that the bilateral relationship are going through a complicated stage and yet those impediments — the current tension, the tense atmosphere — essentially have no solid reason behind it,” he said.
“The Cold War is a thing of past. The era of acute ideological confrontation of the two countries is a thing of remote past, is a vestige of the past. The situation in the world changed dramatically,” Putin explained.
(Eagle News Service)