In a new report, it has been claimed that the Russians had contacted the Trump administration in the very first weeks of his presidency so as to normalize ties and restore diplomatic ties. On Wednesday, the Kremlin confirmed that Russia had indeed made contact for the restoration of ties with the United States. The report initially surfaced on Buzzfeed, who obtained a copy of the document in which the Russians had made the proposal.
Russian contact
A 12 September report by Buzzfeed News had claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin had tried to make up with the United States and had contacted the trump administration through diplomatic channels in the early days of the administration.
Buzzfeed had also obtained a copy of the proposal document and instead of denying the approach outright, Kremlin had no other option but to confirm the veracity of the report. Despite Moscow's efforts to normalize ties and cash in on the early days of the Trump presidency, the whole thing came to nothing as the Trump administration did not reciprocate to the overtures.
Having already confirmed that the documents were, in fact, authentic, a Russian official at Kremlin expressed dismay at the continued leaking of documents from inside the Trump administration and went on to say that the latest revelations prove that Russia is working hard towards normalizing relations.
Russia confirms approach
When it comes to leaks related to diplomatic negotiations, it is usually assumed that the concerned nations would strongly deny that they ever took place but Russia did not do so.
It seems that the existence of the documents has forced their hand to acknowledge that they had indeed contacted the Trump administration regarding normalization of relations. Dimitry Peskov, who is a Kremlin spokesperson confirmed the approach and went on to state that the Russian approach met with no response. According to CNN, he said, "Moscow systematically advocated for a resumption of the dialogue, for an exchange of opinion and for attempts at finding joint solutions.
But, unfortunately, it saw no reciprocity."
The proposal document earmarked what the Russians wanted and one of the most interesting proposals was a one on one meeting between the highest ranking national security officials of both countries. The Russians also proposed some sort of collaboration with the United States with respect to information security. However, the Trump administration did not even respond.
