Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin vowed a fresh start to troubled relations between the world's greatest nuclear powers at their first summit today, as the American leader rejected a chance to condemn Moscow's alleged manipulation of US elections.
The US and Russian leaders came out of their meeting in Helsinki expressing a desire to cooperate on global challenges, after talks on an array of issues from Syria, Ukraine and China to trade tariffs and the size of their nuclear arsenals.
Standing alongside Putin at a joint news conference, Trump said he had "spent a great deal of time talking about" election meddling, without going into detail or explicitly condemning any interference, after 12 Russian agents were indicted in the United States.
Rather, when pressed about the verdict of his own intelligence chiefs, Trump stressed that Putin had delivered a "powerful" denial of any Russian vote meddling and said the US investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller had been a "disaster" for the United States.
Trump again denied any collusion between his campaign and the Kremlin, while Putin insisted: "The Russian state has never interfered and is not planning to interfere in the USA's internal affairs."
Putin said: "It is obvious to everyone that bilateral ties are going through a difficult period. However there are no objective reasons for these difficulties, the current tense atmosphere."
Putin, basking in congratulations from Trump and other world leaders for the successful staging of the World Cup in Russia, said: "The time has come to talk in a substantive way about our relations and problem areas of the world."
Trump added: "Frankly, we have not been getting along for the last number of years. And I really think the world wants to see us get along. We are the two great nuclear powers."
Russia's foreign ministry tweeted in response: "We agree."
"Europe and China, America and Russia, today in Beijing and in Helsinki, are jointly responsible for improving the world order, not for destroying it," he tweeted. "I hope this message reaches Helsinki."
Greenpeace draped a giant banner down a church tower urging: "Warm our hearts not our planet."
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