First Trump-Putin visit raises issue of meddling
Russian leader denies hacking; aides differ on details of talks
HAMBURG, Germany — President Donald Trump questioned President Vladimir Putin of Russia on Friday about Moscow’s interference in the 2016 elections, using their epic first face-to-face meeting to directly raise what has become a vexing political issue for the White House.
Putin denied any meddling, and aides for both offered differing versions of the exchange. But they also said the two leaders quickly turned to how they could work together, including on combating cyberattacks and de-escalating the Syria war.
In a more-than-two-hour meeting that was so all-consuming that even Trump’s wife, Melania, failed to pry the two leaders apart halfway through, Trump and Putin established “positive chemistry” and spoke about a range of issues, said Rex Tillerson, the secretary of state. He was the only other U.S. official in the session, which also included Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov of Russia.
The Trump-Putin meeting eclipsed the rest of the agenda at the Group of 20 summit meeting and was seen as a potentially perilous moment for the U.S. president, who has been shadowed by questions of Russian collusion in the presidential election to help him win.
But the talks with Putin oddly turned into a bright spot for Trump on the first full day of the summit meeting, where the United States found itself increasingly ostracized by other G-20 members on major issues including climate,
immigration and trade.
Tension between Trump administration officials and their counterparts in the European Union was especially apparent, signaling a weakening of U.S. influence at the gathering and raising strong doubts about whether participants would be able to devise a final communiqué that would even include the United States.
Kremlin’s account
For Trump, however, the main focus, at least for part of the day, was domestic U.S. politics.
In a stark shift, Trump, who had equivocated as recently as the day before over whether Moscow was solely responsible for the 2016 hacking, broached the subject with Putin, telling him that Americans were concerned about Russia’s interference. But he threatened no consequences for the meddling, and when Putin denied it, he agreed that the two must get past an issue that had become a “hindrance” in the U.S.Russia relationship, Tillerson said.
“The president’s rightly focused on, ‘How do we move forward from what may be simply an intractable disagreement at this point?’” Tillerson told reporters after the meeting. He said the two focused on how the United States could secure a commitment from Russia that it would not seek to disrupt U.S. democracy, or that of other countries, in the future.
“There was not a lot of relitigating of the past,” Tillerson said.
But in a sign of the challenges and tension still standing in the way of turning over a new leaf in the U.S.-Russia relationship, the Kremlin quickly provided an alternative account, asserting that Trump had accepted Putin’s denial of the election cyber interference and even said that some in the United States were “exaggerating” Moscow’s interference without proof.
Lavrov told reporters that “President Trump said that he heard the clear statements of President Putin that this is not true, and that the Russian leadership did not interfere in these elections, and that he accepts these statements.”
Trump, according to Lavrov, “mentioned that certain circles in the U.S. are still exaggerating, although they cannot prove this, the topic of Russia’s interference with the U.S. election.”
‘Safe zones’ in Syria
Both sides agreed that the two leaders had been eager to move on from the dispute and discuss other matters, including a new effort to combat cyberthreats and a cease-fire to begin as early as Sunday in a limited area of southwestern Syria.
Announcing it on Friday gave Trump a tangible achievement coming out of a risky and heavily scrutinized meeting with Putin, which had been fraught with expectations and suspicion amid investigations into whether the president’s campaign colluded with Russia in efforts to sway the 2016 election on his behalf.
The two presidents smiled, shook hands and praised each other, saying they hoped for a productive relationship.
“President Putin and I have been discussing various things, and I think it’s going very well,” Trump said at the start of the meeting, as both men sat spraddle-legged in chairs arranged side by side. They clasped hands and leaned in to listen to each other.
“We look forward to a lot of very positive happenings for Russia, and for the United States, and for everybody concerned. And it’s an honor to be with you.”
Putin said he was happy to have the chance to meet Trump in person. “We spoke over the phone,” he said, “but phone conversations are never enough, definitely.”
He added: “I hope that, as you have said, our meetings will yield positive results.”
Ukraine discussions
The two also discussed the matter of Ukraine as Trump pushes forward on a new effort to get Russia to cease its interference there. Tillerson on Friday announced he had named a new envoy, Kurt Volcker, to negotiate on the matter. Volcker, a former NATO ambassador and official at the National Security Council, was to accompany Tillerson to Kiev on Sunday.
The two presidents decided to put together a “framework” to monitor cyberattacks and evaluate who should be “held accountable,” Tillerson said.
Lavrov indicated that progress was not made on a Russian demand that the United States return two diplomatic compounds, one in Maryland and another in New York, that had been used by Russian spies and were seized in December as part of the Obama administration’s sanctions for Moscow’s election interference.
“Both presidents were driven by their national interests, and they also both understood that both countries can do this only if we search for a balance between the interests of our two countries and if we want to maintain stability,” Lavrov said.