President Donald Trump has called Russian President Vladimir Putin to congratulate him on his re-election to a fourth term.
President Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that a meeting between the pair could happen soon and they would follow up on Mr Putin’s recent declaration that he does not want an arms race with the United States.
“I suspect that we’ll probably be meeting in the not too distant future to discuss the arms race, to discuss the arms race, which is getting out of control, but we will never allow anybody to have anything even close to what we have,” President Trump said.
“Also to discuss Ukraine, Syria and North Korea and various other things.”
The Kremlin said in a statement the two presidents spoke about the need to “co-ordinate efforts to limit the arms race” and for closer cooperation on strategic stability and counter-terrorism.
“Special attention was given to considering the issue of a possible bilateral summit,” the Kremlin statement said.
In addition, President Trump and President Putin expressed satisfaction with the apparent easing of tensions over North Korea’s weapons programme, according to the Kremlin.
No details were released about the timing or location of the possible meeting, which would be the third since President Trump took office in January 2017.
They met on the sidelines of an international summit in Germany last summer and again more informally at another gathering of world leaders in Vietnam in November.
President Trump’s call came after the White House imposed sanctions on Russia for its interference in the 2016 election and other “malicious cyberattacks”.
The US also has sharply criticised Russia for its apparent role in a nerve agent attack on a former Russian spy and his daughter on British soil.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article