"He's (Trump) been very clear on his desire with Russia. There's a lot of fever in this country about Russia and the Russians. Obviously it seems like they did do some bad things with regards to trying to interfere by doing the DNC hack and all those different things that's been reported on," the official said yesterday.
"But, he views the world through his strategic objectives area. To the degree that the Russians can work with him on accomplishing those strategic objectives he's going to work with him," the official said.
"Like in Syria, for example, there might be some opportunity by working with Russia towards ending the conflict and creating de-escalation zones, and if we can accomplish that then he'll be very open-minded to that," the official said.
The senior official said when it comes to other issues, the US president will less flexible and open-minded and that the US and Russia have a lot of different interests in a lot of different places.
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"For him it's going to be an opportunity to be able to spend time with a lot of these leaders. To have very candid conversations about what we've accomplished to date and how the world has changed and how the world is changing and where it has the potential to go," the official said.
The US is also making efforts to mediate talks between Israel and Palestine to ensure peace in the region and will assess the on ground situation during Trump's visit there.
"With regard to Israelis and Palestinians, we so far had great conversations with both parties. I think, we tried to show people that things are possible," the senior administration official said.
"We will do our assessment when we reach the region, but we are planning to meet Abbas and Netanyahu while we are there and see how it goes," the official said.
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