FACE TO FACE
Trump and Putin meet in Hamburg, emerging with a deal on a partial cease-fire in Syria, but little else
HAMBURG, Germany — Eight months after an unprecedented U.S. election — one that some U.S. intelligence agencies say the Russian government tried to sway — President Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin sat for their first meeting on Friday, a friendly encounter that ended in confusion over whether Trump accepted assurances that the Kremlin was innocent of any wrongdoing during the campaign.
Trump, believed to be the intended beneficiary of any Russian meddling, emerged from the extraordinary meeting — which dragged so long that Trump’s wife tried once to break it up — with a deal including Russia and Jordan on a partial Syrian cease-fire. The agreement would mark the first time Washington and Moscow had operated together in Syria to try to reduce the violence.
But there were no grand bargains on U.S. sanctions on Russia, the Ukraine crisis or the other issues that have
divided the nations for years.
The meeting, on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit, opened with Trump telling Putin it was an “honor to be with you.” In the closed-door discussion, Trump pressed Putin “on more than one occasion” on Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential elections, said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who attended the 2-hour, 16-minute meeting.
Tillerson said that “President Putin denied such involvement” but that he agreed to organize talks “regarding commitments of noninterference in the affairs of the United States and our democratic process.”
But Tillerson’s counterpart, Russian Foreign Minster Sergei Lavrov, said Trump had heard out Putin’s assurances that Moscow did not run a hacking and disinformation effort, and dismissed the entire investigation into the Russian role.
“President Trump said that this campaign has taken on a rather strange character, because after many months, whenever these accusations are made, no facts are brought,” Lavrov told Russian reporters. “The U.S. president said that he heard clear statements from President Putin about this being untrue, and that he accepted these statements.”
The two presidents, he said, are “looking for mutually beneficial agreements and not trying to act out some confrontation scenarios, not trying to create problems out of nothing.”
U.S. lawmakers from both parties had urged Trump to discuss the election meddling with Putin. But Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., the Senate minority leader, dismissed the outcome as “disgraceful.”
“President Trump had an obligation to bring up Russia’s interference in our election with Putin, but he has an equal obligation to take the word of our Intelligence Community rather than that of the Russian President,” Schumer said in a statement.
Before the meeting, analysts in Moscow and Washington had said that any signal from Trump that Moscow and Washington can put aside past differences and forge a new relationship would be a victory for Putin. In Moscow, political leaders were celebrating Friday night.
“In some sense, it’s a breakthrough,” said Konstantin Kosachyov, chairman of the foreign relations committee in the upper house of the Russian Federal Assembly, or parliament. “Absolutely, definitely, psychologically, and possibly, practically.”
Valentina Matviyenko, speaker of the upper house, the Federation Council, issued a statement saying, “There is no doubt that this meeting may become a step toward the solution to the situation in which the relations between our states currently are.”
The world had waited for the first meeting between Trump and Putin, both of whom seemed intent on moving the relationship forward.
Trump told Putin that members of Congress were pushing for additional sanctions against Russia over the election issue, Tillerson said. “But the two presidents, I think, rightly focused on, how do we move forward?” he added.
Trump and Putin designated top officials to collaborate on the creation of a framework that will prevent future political interference, Tillerson said, as part of a bilateral commission that would also discussion counterterrorism and resolution of the conflict in Ukraine.
Tillerson said they also agreed to a “de-escalation agreement” regarding a section of southwestern Syria. Jordan was also part of that agreement.
The meeting lasted much longer than expected. At one point, Trump’s wife, Melania, entered the room to try to see if it could wrap up soon, but it continued much longer.