United States President Donald Trump met Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday on the sidelines of the G20 summit.
Speaking to reporters in a brief photo-op before their bilateral meeting, the US president said, “President Putin and I have been discussing various things, and I think it’s going very well,” reports the CNN.
He added, “We’ve had some very good talks. We’re going to have a talk now, and obviously that will continue, but we look forward to a lot of very positive things happening for Russia, the United States and for everybody concerned. It’s an honour to be with you.”
Photograph: Carlos Barria/Reuters
To this, Putin responded: “I’m delighted to be able to meet you personally, Mr President, and I hope as you have said our meeting will yield positive results.”
The leaders were accompanied by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the bilateral meeting.
The meeting comes amid controversy over collusion of Trump’s campaign team with Russia. Trump and his administration are facing multiple investigations focussing on the Kremlin’s role in the 2016 election meddling and whether members of his campaign possibly sought to collude with Russia.
A special counsel and several congressional committees are now looking into the issue.
