Putin wants to ‘fully restore’ ties with U.S.
http://www.hrlnews.com/2019/05/putin-wants-to-fully-restore-ties-with.html
Russian President Vladimir Putin says he wants to
“fully restore” strained ties between Washington and Moscow, during a
visit by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
“I would very much like your visit to Russia to
benefit Russia-U.S. relations and promote their development,” Putin said
as he received Pompeo at his residence in the Black Sea resort of
Sochi.
Putin also praised the Mueller report, despite its findings that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
“Despite the exotic nature of Mr. Mueller’s
commission, on the whole, he conducted quite an objective investigation
and confirmed the absence of any collusion between the U.S.
administration and Russia,” he said.
Moscow has rejected these claims “from the very beginning as complete nonsense.”
A Kremlin aide later said Putin is also open to a new
meeting with Trump at the G20 summit in Japan next month if Moscow
receives a formal proposal for such an encounter.
Yuri Ushakov, the Kremlin aide, said Putin’s meeting
with Pompeo at the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi had not yielded any
breakthrough but had been held in a business-like atmosphere.
Pompeo earlier told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov that U.S. President Donald Trump was committed to improving
relations with Moscow.
Pompeo underlined to Putin that Trump wanted to make
“our two peoples more successful and, frankly, the world more
successful, too.”
“President Trump wants to do everything we can and he asked me to travel here to communicate that.
“Some of our cooperation has been excellent – on
North Korea, on Afghanistan, we’ve done good work – (and)
counter-terrorism work – together. These are things we can build upon.”
Trump on Monday said he planned to meet Putin on the
sidelines of the forthcoming meeting of the G20 nations, but the Kremlin
said it had not yet received any formal request from Washington for
such a meeting.
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