Kremlin Says It Hopes Putin’s Calls With Trump Won’t Be Made Public

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Russia’s aggression prompted Western economic sanctions and Russia’s expulsion from the Group of 8 nations. Undoing those penalties is high on Mr. Putin’s agenda, and would depend on making peace with Ukraine.

Mr. Trump has said that Russia should be readmitted to what is now the Group of 7. And he has suggested that he believes Mr. Putin’s denials of Russian meddling in 2016, rather than the conclusion of United States intelligence agencies that the interference took place.

On Friday, Mr. Peskov declined to comment on the controversy surrounding Mr. Trump’s conversation with Mr. Zelensky.

Over the past three years, Mr. Putin has had 11 phone conversations with Mr. Trump, the most recent in July, according to the Kremlin’s website. Only brief descriptions of the calls have been published by both sides.

The two leaders have habitually discussed the urgent need to improve bilateral ties, something that appeared more difficult than was expected when President Trump was elected, as well as an array of international issues, from nuclear disarmament in North Korea to conflict resolution in Syria and Ukraine.

In 2018, President Bill Clinton’s library released transcripts of his phone calls with President Boris N. Yeltsin of Russia. The transcripts revealed many interesting details about the bilateral relations, but also about Russia’s own history at a pivotal moment in 1999, when Mr. Yeltsin decided to select Mr. Putin as his successor.

“It took me a lot of time to think who might be the next Russian president in the year 2000,” Mr. Yeltsin told Mr. Clinton at the time, according to the transcript.

“Finally, I came across him, that is, Putin,” he said. “He’s tough. He has an internal ramrod,” said Mr. Yeltsin. “He will continue the Yeltsin line on democracy and economics and widen Russia’s contacts.”



Source : Nytimes