Yahoo Finance Donald Trump congratulates Vladimir Putin on election win and pledges talks in ‘not too distant future’
Donald Trump has congratulated Vladimir Putin on his election victory and said the pair will hold talks in the “not too distant future”.
The US president revealed he had spoken on the phone to the newly re-elected Russian leader during a White House appearance on Tuesday.
Mr Trump said: “I had a call with President Putin and congratulated him on his electoral victory.”
He said the pair will meet soon to discuss the “arms race”. Mr Putin said after his election victory that he did not want to escalate the weapons race with the West.
Mr Trump also said the pair would discuss the Syrian civil war, the situation in Ukraine and the North Korean regime.
The US president made no mention of alleged ballot-stuffing in the Russian election, which saw Mr Putin win with more than 76 per cent of the vote.
Mr Putin’s victory means he will rule until 2024, when under the current Russian constitution he will have to step down.
It comes as the US Senate intelligence committee launched an effort to prevent election hacking, holding a press conference in Washington DC.
The committee called for all voting to have an “auditable paper trail”, something that five states who adopted electronic voting failed to do in recent elections.
Mark Warner, the committee's Democratic vice-chairman, also said he was “disappointed” that central and local governments were not more “on their game” before the 2016 vote.
Speaking on Tuesday, Mr Trump said about his conversation with Mr Putin: “We had a very good call and I expect we will be meeting in the not too distant future.
“The arms race is getting out of control but we'll never allow anyone to have anything near what we have."
There has been a relatively muted reaction from Western leaders to Mr Putin’s victory. Alexei Navalny, the main opposition leader, had been barred from the race.
Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, said: “Currently, the China-Russia comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership is at the best level in history, which sets an example for building a new type of international relations."
