Putin, Trump in phone call back normalizing US-Russia ties: Kremlin

Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump spoke on the phone on the evening of Nov. 14 and agreed on the need to normalize ties between Washington and Moscow, the Kremlin said.

The Kremlin also said that the two politicians agreed to “make provisions for a personal meeting,” AFP reported.

Later a Kremlin spokesperson said the two did not aim at meeting before Trump’s inauguration.

The presidential transition team in Washington said in a statement that it was Putin who called Trump to “offer his congratulations on winning a historic election.”

The Kremlin said that Putin and Trump noted “the extremely unsatisfactory state of Russian-U.S. relations at present” and “declared the need for active joint work to normalize them.”

Putin wished Trump success in carrying out his campaign promises, the Kremlin said, and expressed his readiness to “create a dialogue of partnership with the new administration on the basis of equality, mutual respect and non-intervention in each other’s domestic affairs.”

They “agreed on the need to unite efforts in the struggle with the enemy number one: international terrorism and extremism,” the Kremlin said, adding that in this context they discussed the “issues over resolving the crisis in Syria.”

 Trump’s team meanwhile said more generally that the pair discussed “the threats and challenges” facing both countries as well as economic issues and “the historical U.Sç-Russia relationship that dates back over 200 years.”  

Meanwhile, U.S. President Barack Obama said Trump was in for a quick wake-up call and would have to adjust his temperament when he confronts the realities of his new job on Jan. 20, 2017, following his inauguration.

In a news conference at the White House, Obama said the freewheeling Trump could not be as outspoken as he was during the long and bitter campaign that ended last week with the Republican’s surprise win over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

“This office has a way of waking you up,” Obama said. “Those aspects of his positions or predispositions that don’t match up with reality, he will find shaken up pretty quick because reality has a way of asserting itself.”
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Nov. 15 action on climate change has become “unstoppable” and predicted that Trump would drop plans to quit a global accord aimed at weaning the world off fossil fuels.

At a meeting of almost 200 nations in Morocco to work out ways to implement the 2015 Paris agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions, Ban said U.S. companies, states and cities were all pushing to limit global warming.

“What was once unthinkable has become unstoppable,” he told a news conference of the Paris Agreement, agreed by governments last year, and which formally entered into force on Nov. 4 after a record quick ratification.

On the same day, NATO head Jens Stoltenberg said he was sure that Donald Trump would meet all U.S. commitments to the alliance, just days after urging the president-elect not to go it alone.

“President-elect Donald Trump stated during the election campaign that he is a big fan of NATO,” Stoltenberg said in Brussels as he arrived for talks with EU Defense Ministers.

“And I am certain that he will be a president… who will live up to all the commitments of the United States in the alliance, because a strong NATO is important for Europe but it’s also important for the United States.”