Russian President Vladimir Putin responded to reporters’ questions on Feb. 19 regarding the talks in Saudi Arabia between high-level Russian and U.S. delegations, and a few other matters.
Regarding the U.S.-Russia talks in Riyadh, Kommersant quoted him as saying, “I value these talks highly. They produced results. The American participants were entirely different people, they were open to a process of unimpeded discussion, without any judgment about what has been done in the past.
“We agreed to resume the work of diplomatic missions in a normal manner. The constant expulsion of diplomats from Washington and Moscow does not lead to anything good.” In response to questions about a possible mediator between the two countries, Putin responded: “Someone wants to be a mediator between Russia and the United States? This is probably an excessive demand. The work continues and the outlook is good.
“In the next couple of days, I plan to call Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud and thank him for organizing Russian-American negotiations in Riyadh.”
Commenting on a possible upcoming meeting with President Trump:
“I would be happy to meet Donald, we haven’t seen each other for a long time. We don’t have any close relations, but still, in previous years, during the four years when he was president, we met and discussed our country-to-country relations a lot.
