WASHINGTON: US President-elect Donald Trump has already spoken over the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin, /. The Washington Po...
WASHINGTON: US President-elect Donald Trump has already spoken over the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin, /. The Washington Post said, citing its sources.
However, neither Washington not Moscow have officially confirmed this information.
According to The Washington Post, Trump and Putin discussed the situation in Ukraine and "the goal of peace on the European continent and Trump expressed an interest in follow-up conversations to discuss ‘the resolution of Ukraine’s war soon,’ several of the people said."
During his election campaign, Trump promised to immediately settle the Ukrainian conflict but did not say how he was planning to do this. According to the newspaper, Trump said privately that he would support an agreement where Russia kept some of the liberated territories and during the phone call with Putin he had briefly touched upon the issue of territories. Apart from that, the Ukrainian government was informed about the call and it did not object to it as the Kiev officials understood that Trump would discuss the matter with Putin, The Washington Post noted.
However, the newspaper noted, Trump’s calls with world leaders are not backed by the Department of State and US administration interpreters, since Trump and his aides "are distrustful of career government officials following the leaked transcripts of presidential calls during his first term." "They are just calling [Trump] directly," it cited one of the people familiar with the calls
Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that the Russian president is open to dialogue with Trump, however, in his words, nothing concrete could be said about it as of yet.
Speaking at Thursday’s plenary session of the Valdai Discussion Club, Putin congratulated Trump on winning the presidential election, adding that he saw nothing wrong with calling Trump. The latter, however, told NBC that he had not yet spoken with the Russian leader but believed such a call was highly likely.
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