President Trump, Putin Summit Underway In Finland

US President Donald Trump told Russian President Vladimir Putin that he believes both countries will “end up having an extraordinary relationship” and that “getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing.”

Trump and Putin are holding a one-on-one meeting at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, Finland.

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In his opening remarks to Putin, the US President said he planned to discuss trade, military, missiles and China. He did not mention Russia’s alleged meddling in the US election, Russia’s seizure of Crimea from Ukraine, Syria, NATO or Salisbury poisoning, but he congratulated Putin for hosting a successful World Cup and Russia’s performance in the tournament.

“First of all Mr President I’d like to congratulate you on a really great World Cup. One of the best ever from what everybody tells me and also for your team, itself, doing so well.

“I watched quite a bit and in the United States we call it soccer and I watched quite a bit of it and I watched the entire final and the semi-finals and they were really spectacular games, but it was beautifully done so congratulations on that.

“Most importantly we have a lot of good things to talk about … we have discussions on everything from trade to military, to missiles, to nuclear, to China, we’ll be talking a little bit about China – our mutual friend President Xi,” Trump said.

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Trump in his statement admitted the US and Russia have not been getting along very well for the last number of years. Trump had in his pre-summit tweet, earlier on Monday, said US-Russia relations have “never been worse”.

“I think we have great opportunities together as two countries that frankly we have not been getting along very well for the last number of years. I’ve been here not too long but it is getting close to two years, but I think we will end up having an extraordinary relationship. I’ve been saying, and I’m sure you’ve heard, over the years … that getting along with Russia is a good thing not a bad thing.

“I really think the world wants to see us get along. We are the two great nuclear powers. We have 90% of the nuclear – and that’s not a good thing it’s a bad thing. I think we can hopefully do something about that because it is not a positive force it is a negative force so we’ll be talking about that among other things.

“And with that the world awaits and I look forward to our personal discussion which I think begins now and then we are going to meet our whole team. You have quite a few representatives as I do. We all have a lot of questions and hopefully, we will come up with answers most importantly. It is great to be with you,” Trump added.

While Putin who spoke early, but succinctly, said it is a pleasure to meet Trump, he emphasized that he and Trump had spoken several times by phone.

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“Distinguished president, I am delighted to be able to meet you here in Finland. We have been in continual contact by telephone since the last time, and obviously the time has come to have a business-like conversation because there is so much happening in the world that we need to talk about,” Putin said.

A broader meeting, with other officials present, was scheduled to be held after the one-on-one talks.

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