FM: Putin-Trump phone call demonstrate mutual respect

By Azernews

By Nigar Eyvazova

The phone call between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday was a display of mutual respect between the two men, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on January 30.

"The conversation which took place on Saturday between Presidents Putin and Trump was good, I would say, in both the political and human the human sense," Lavrov told reporters.

"They have agreed to continue work at the expert level, both as part of their further contacts, which will surely be held, and the time and details, which are yet to be agreed," Lavrov added.

In the call, their first conversation since Trump’s inauguration, Putin and Trump agreed to try to rebuild U.S- Russia ties and to cooperate in Syria.

Trump has said he wants a rapprochement with Moscow if he can get along with Putin, who says he is also keen to mend ties.

The Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, in turn, said it was too early to talk about any possible deals with the United States over sanctions on Russia, but that President Putin could meet Donald Trump before the G20 in July.

"To start with we must fix the date and time of a meeting between the two presidents. Aides are working on this now," he said, adding that a meeting could happen before a G20 summit scheduled to take place in Hamburg on July 7-8.

Peskov said that Putin and Trump had not discussed sanctions in their phone call on Saturday, their first conversation since Trump's inauguration.

"The conversation was good, it was constructive, and practically, from the viewpoint of beginning the discussion of a number of issues concerning regional and international security placement of the main emphasis on the issues of possible cooperation in the fight against terrorism, as well as very positive from the viewpoint, perhaps, that the heads of state noted respect as a very important principle of bilateral relations," Peskov told reporters.

Putin and Trump also discussed the situation in the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli conflict, anti-terror efforts, the sphere of strategic stability and non-proliferation, the Iranian nuclear program, the situation on the Korean peninsula as well as the situation in eastern Ukraine.