MOSCOW, July 20. /TASS/. Washington is strongly reluctant to accept the results of the Helsinki meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump, Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov said, addressing a session of the Valdai International Discussion Club on Friday.
"We expected Washington’s reaction to the summit to be mixed. However, I did not expect such a strong reluctance to accept anything the two presidents had discussed," he said.
"Shortly after the two presidents’ joint press conference was over, I started getting text messages from the Russian embassy in Washington - my colleagues were monitoring the US media - about a tough reaction to the talks," Antonov noted.
Putin-Trump meeting
The first full-fledged talks between the presidents of Russia and the United States took place in Finland’s capital of Helsinki on July 16. The one-on-one meeting between Putin and Trump lasted more than two hours, while delegation members later joined the presidents for a working lunch. The Russian delegation was composed of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov and Presidential Aide Yuri Ushakov. The US delegation included Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton. The expanded session also took about two hours.
The talks discussed pressing bilateral and global issues. Both presidents said after the summit that a big step forward had been taken.