MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Friday that a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump was essential but required considerable advance preparation and had to yield results when it happened.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was commenting after Trump said he would meet Putin “as soon as we can set it up”.
“…Such a meeting is certainly necessary. It is necessary both primarily from the point of view of bilateral Russian-U.S. relations and from the point of view of having a serious conversation at the highest level about international affairs and on regional problems, including, of course, about the crisis over Ukraine,” Peskov said.
Russian and Ukrainian negotiators were in Istanbul on Friday for what was billed as their first direct peace talks in more than three years, under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to end Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War Two.
Commenting on the Istanbul talks, Peskov said that the Russian negotiating team was in constant communication with Moscow and that President Putin was receiving real-time updates.
(Reporting by Anastasia Lyrchikova; Writing by Maxim Rodionov and Anastasia Teterevleva; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
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