Russia: Joint cyber unit with US will take time to set up

MOSCOW: A joint Russian- US working group on cyber security, proposed by President Vladimir Putin in a discussion with US President Donald Trump in Hamburg, is unlikely to be launched any time soon, a Russian official said yesterday.

“President Putin proposed forming a working group. This does not mean that it should start working immediately, virtually tomorrow,” Svetlana Lukash, a Russian official at the G20 summit held in Germany last week, told a news conference.

Trump on Sunday back tracked on the suggestion for a cyber security unit with Russia, tweeting that he did not think it could happen. This happened hours after it was criticized by Republicans who said Moscow could not be trusted.

“Nobody, except the participants of that (Hamburg) meeting, knows how that poposal was formulated and how President Trump reacted,” Lukash said.

She said that some media reports may have pre-judged that creating a joint commission on cyber security was a decided matter already.

“That was a proposal. Probably, he (Trump) is not ready yet for this specific initiative at this stage,” she said.

“But this does not mean that there won’t be cooperation between the two nations in this sphere in any form which suits them both.”

Trump argued for a rapprochement with Moscow in his campaign but has been unable to deliver because his administration has been dogged by investigations into the allegations of Russian interference in the election and ties with his campaign.

Putin and Trump discussed cyber security for no less than 40 minutes in Hamburg, Lukash said.

She did not rule out that, in the end, a joint cyber security commission could be either a US- Russian bilateral unit or a United Nations-sponsored effort. — Reuters