The US and Russian leaders also discussed Syria and North Korea at their first meeting in four months.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed a statement on Syria during a brief meeting at a summit in Vietnam on Saturday, their first meeting since July. Putin again dismissed allegations of Russian meddling in last year’s U.S. election.
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The meeting came at a time of U.S.-Russia relations being battered and Trump is haunted by the accusations that Putin influenced the election that brought him to the White House.
“It shows that Russia-US relations are still in crisis. The fact that we manage to agree on something even in these conditions, I am talking about the Syrian statement now, is great but not enough,” said Putin.
On the flight from the APEC summit to Hanoi Trump spoke to reporters about his meeting with Putin, adding they also spoke about North Korea.
Trump said their agreement to support a political solution to Syria’s conflict would save “tremendous numbers of lives”.
“We did it very quickly,” Trump explained aboard Air Force One.
He then said “I don’t know how many times I can ask him if he meddled in the election, but I pressed him again and he denied it, and I believe him”. Trump added he believed the Russian president was “very insulted by it, which is not a good thing for our country”.