Although U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladamir Putin have talked on the phone several times about issues, the two leaders agreed telephone calls are not enough. They agreed during their face-to-face encounter on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Germany to have more personal meetings.
Their Meeting went beyond handshakes which become the topic of a lot of speculation. Besides the exchange of pleasantries, the two tackled major issues such as Syria and the Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, The New York Post reported.
Bilateral and acute issues
Putin said if Moscow and Washington want to resolve bilateral and acute international issues, they need personal meetings. Their first closed door two-hour meeting included U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and two translators.
One of the issues Trump and Putin resolved was to have a ceasefire over the southwest Syria conflict. It will take effect on Sunday noon, Damascus time. Included in the ceasefire agreement are Israel and Jordan which have a common border with southern Syria. It is separate from a previous agreement among Russia, Turkey, and Iran in early 2017 to establish de-escalation zones in the region since the U.S.
is excluded from that deal, The New York Post reported.
Putin denies Russia meddled in U.S. election
Reuters reported that because the meeting took more than two hours, at one point, U.S. First Lady Melania Trump peeked in and urged Trump and Putin to conclude. The meeting lasted that long because it included the contentious issue of Russian interference in the U.S.
election in 2016.
Tillerson said that Trump questioned Putin about Russian involvement in the election. “They had a very robust and lengthy exchange on the subject. The president pressed President Putin on more than one occasion regarding Russian involvement. President Putin denied such involvement, as I think he has in the past,” Tillerson said, The New York Post reported.
On Thursday, while in Warsaw, Trump said Russia and other countries meddled in the U.S. election. He said there is nothing wrong with that statement because “nobody really knows for sure.”
The two leaders also discussed North Korea. Last week, Dmitry Peskov, the spokesman of Kremlin, said the two presidents expected a working dialogue would be established with their meeting. The dialogue, he said, is very important for the whole world to increase the efficiency of resolving a critical mass of conflicts.
