Trump to discuss election meddling with Putin in Helsinki

World

Published: 2018-06-30 12:06

Last Updated: 2024-03-18 16:25


The Helsinki meeting comes five days after the G7 Summit. (file photo)
The Helsinki meeting comes five days after the G7 Summit. (file photo)

US President, Donald Trump, affirmed on Friday that nothing will be off the table during the first official summit with President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland on July 16, Reuters reported.

Trump stated that he would address the issue of alleged Russian meddling in US elections. He also voiced his wishes to have a good relationship with both Russia and China.

“I’ll talk to him about everything, We do not want anyone tampering with elections,” Trump said to White House press pool on Friday.

While Russia denies any interference in the 2016 American presidential elections, US intelligence have concluded otherwise and the subject is still the core of several federal investigations.

Other topics on the meeting’s table are Ukraine, Syria and Iran’s nuclear program.

Relations between Kremlin and the White House became very tensed during the administration of Barack Obama, who imposed sanctions on Russia due to Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

According to Russian ambassador to the US, Moscow hopes that the Helsinki summit will restart dialogue with Washington.

“We need each other, not because we want to love each other. We do not want and we do not need to be loved, we simply need to hold normal, pragmatic relations with a major country upon which a lot in the world depends,” Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told a news conference at the United Nations.

The Helsinki talks, which come five days after a NATO summit meeting in Brussels, could undermine confidence in the strength of the transatlantic alliance as Trump declared “NATO is as bad as NAFTA” during the G7 summit.