Putin hails offer to host meeting with Trump

Russian leader says Slovenia is excellent venue for talks with US President

Russian President Vladimir Putin has thanked Slovenia for offering to host his first meeting with US President Donald Trump, but added that the prospect hinges on Washington.

The Russian leader hailed Slovenia, where Mr Trump’s wife Melania was born and grew up, as an “excellent” venue for possible talks with the US President.

“It depends not only on us, but we are naturally ready for it,” he said.

Speaking after holding talks at the Kremlin with his Slovenian counterpart Borut Pahor, Mr Putin said Russia welcomes Mr Trump’s statements about his intentions to restore strained Russia-US ties.

“We always welcomed that and we hope that relations will be restored in full in all areas,” Mr Putin said.

“It relates to trade and economic ties, security issues and various regions of the world, which are suffering from numerous conflicts.

“By pooling our efforts, we naturally would be able to significantly contribute to solving those issues, including the fight against international terrorism.”

In recent years, Russia-US relations have plunged to post-Cold War lows over the Ukrainian crisis, the war in Syria and the allegations of Russian hacking of the Democrats in the US presidential election.

In 2001, Slovenia hosted Mr Putin’s first meeting with former US president George W Bush that led to a short-lived thaw in relations between Moscow and Washington.

A similarly short warm spell early during Barack Obama’s presidency gave way to new tensions.

As part of Mr Obama’s early effort to “reset” ties with Moscow, the two nations in 2010 signed a pivotal arms control pact that set new lower caps on the number of warheads each country can deploy.

Mr Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the prospects of extending the New START Treaty that is set to expire in 2021 will “depend on the position of our American partners” and require negotiations.

He would not say whether the Kremlin favours extending the pact that limited Russian and US nuclear arsenals to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads each.

While suggesting possible cooperation with Moscow to fight Islamic State (IS) in Syria, as a candidate Mr Trump was critical of the New START Treaty and talked about a need to strengthen US nuclear arsenals.

In December, Mr Trump declared on Twitter that the US should “greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability” until the rest of the world “comes to its senses” regarding nuclear weapons.

Mr Putin has also said strengthening Russia’s nuclear capabilities should be among the nation’s priorities.

Picture: Getty. US President Donald Trump, right, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pose for photographs before bilateral meetings in the Oval Office at the White House yesterday.

Picture: Getty Images. Borut Pahor, left, president of Slovenia, and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet at the Kremlin in Moscow.