Trump and Putin had ‘very clear positive chemistry’: Tillerson
President Trump and Vladimir Putin met face-to-face for the first time on Friday at the G-20 summit in a historic sit-down that lasted more than two hours as they discussed Syria, North Korea and Russian meddling in the US election.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who sat in, said the two “had a very robust and lengthy exchange” right at the start of their meeting about the Kremlin’s interference in the presidential race.
“The president pressed President Putin on more than one occasion regarding Russian involvement. President Putin denied such involvement, as I think he has in the past,” Tillerson said during a press briefing in Hamburg, Germany.
The secretary of state, who had met the Russian strongman when Tillerson was head of ExxonMobil, said the two leaders agreed that it was important to move past the election controversy.
“I think what the two presidents rightly focused on is: How do we move forward from here? Because it’s not clear to me that we will ever come to some agreed upon resolution of that question between the two nations,” he said.
He added that it “may be an intractable disagreement at this point.”
But Tillerson also said it was more important to get a commitment from Russia that election shenanigans won’t happen again.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who also sat in on the meeting, as did two interpreters, told reporters later that Trump had accepted Putin’s denials.
“President Trump said he heard clear statements from Putin that [the charges of meddling] are not true, and that Russian authorities did not intervene, and he accepted these declarations,” Lavrov said.
When the discussion veered to Syria, the two sides found common ground when discussing a previously negotiated cease-fire deal aimed at stemming the violence in the southwestern portion of the war-torn country.
“This is our first indication of the US and Russia being able to work together in Syria,” Tillerson said. But differences remained on other issues.
Tillerson said the Trump administration saw no long-term role for the Assad regime in Syria, which is being propped up by the Russians.
Trump and Putin also discussed North Korea, which last week test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile that experts warned was capable of striking Alaska.
“We’re going to continue those discussions and ask [Russia] to do more. Russia does have economic activity with North Korea, but I would also hasten to add Russia’s official policy is the same as ours, a denuclearized Korean peninsula,” said Tillerson.
But the US’ top diplomat conceded the Russians “see it a little different than we do” on the tactics and “pace” to achieve that goal.
Putin told Russian state media that he and Trump also talked about terrorism, but no details were revealed.
see also Trump and Putin sitdown drags on longer than expected The first-ever sitdown between Presidents Trump and Putin wrapped up...
The meeting was planned for 30 to 40 minutes — but lasted for two hours and 16 minutes.
Tillerson said that was because Trump and Putin got along so well from the start.
“The two leaders, I would say, connected very quickly. There was a very clear positive chemistry between the two,” he said.
They were not interested, he said, in “re-litigating the past” but instead wanted to look to the future. “We simply have to find a way to go forward.”
The pair also bonded over their mutual dislike of the media. “These are the ones who insulted you?” Putin said to Trump, as he pointed to a pack of reporters.
With Post Wires