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Kremlin looks forward to building dialogue with next US president, spokesman says

The Kremlin deems it correct to wait for the official results of the presidential elections in the US before congratulating the country's president-elect

MOSCOW, November 9. /TASS/. The Kremlin hopes that it will be possible to build dialogue with the next US president and agree to improve relations between the two countries, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday.

"We hope that it will be possible to build dialogue with the next US president and agree on ways to improve bilateral relations," he pointed out. "Particularly because an important field of bilateral relations, the security and stability field, concerns not only our two nations but in fact all nations in the world," Peskov added.

The Kremlin deems it correct to wait for the official results of the November 3 presidential elections in the US before congratulating the country's president-elect.

"Anticipating your possible question about congratulations from [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to the US president-elect, I want to say the following: we consider it correct to wait for the official results of the elections to be announced," the Kremlin spokesman said.

Answering the question about the difference between finalizing the election results this time and the situation four years ago, when the Russian president congratulated Donald Trump without delay, Peskov said "the difference is absolutely obvious".

"There [in the US] they are facing certain legal procedures that were announced by the incumbent president, which makes this situation different. So we deem it as correct to wait for the official announcement," Peskov stressed.

Four years ago, no legal challenges to dispute the results were mounted, he reiterated.

The spokesman declined to answer what declaration of the election results exactly would be seen as the official one by the Kremlin.

Nationwide, American citizens headed to the polls on November 3 to elect 435 representatives to the House, 35 senators out of 100 to the Senate, and the President and Vice President of the United States. The November race for the White House pit Democratic contender Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris against incumbent US President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence of the Republican Party. According to major US media outlets, Biden has secured enough electoral votes to win the election. He announced his victory but Trump said he would take the vote count case to courts.