Putin will call and congratulate Trump as a matter of “protocol necessity”, Peskov said [PPIO]
A Kremlin spokesperson said on Saturday that Russian President Vladimir Putin will soon speak by phone with US President Donald Trump.
Dmitry Peskov told local news media that Putin will congratulate Trump on the inauguration and likely discuss a meeting between the two to be held in a few months time.
US media had speculated that Trump would meet with Putin as early as a matter of weeks. But Peskov said that no date had yet been scheduled.
Russia had earlier denied US intelligence reports that it had hacked the US election in November to publish embarrassing information about Democratic candidate Senator Hillary Clinton.
Ties between Moscow and Washington have for the past two years been strained due to the Syria and Ukraine crises. Putin has said he looks forward to working with Trump, while the US president has laid out conditions to remove Obama-era sanctions.
But Peskov said relations would not be mended overnight.
“We indeed are the two biggest countries in the world. And we can’t live without frictions, conflict of interests,” Peskov said in remarks carried by the Russian news agency Interfax.
The BRICS Post with inputs from Agencies
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