Washington: US President Donald Trump has warned Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that Russia should not interfere in the US 2020 elections, the White House said, while Moscow has insisted that it never did so in the 2016 elections, despite the US intelligence services’ conclusion to the contrary.
Trump welcomed Lavrov to a closed-door meeting in the Oval Office on Tuesday to review the state of bilateral relations and the White House announced afterwards in a communique the content of their discussion, Xinhua news agency reported.
“President Trump warned against any Russian attempts to interfere in the US elections and urged Russia to resolve the conflict with Ukraine,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement after the Oval Office meeting.
“Just had a very good meeting with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and representatives of Russia. Discussed many items including Trade, Iran, North Korea, INF Treaty, Nuclear Arms Control, and Election Meddling,” Trump said on Twitter after the meeting as he flew to a campaign rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
After the meeting, however, Lavrov told reporters that he and Trump had not discussed election interference, suggesting that only Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had brought up the issue during their separate meeting at the State Department prior to the Russian’s meeting with the president.
US intelligence agencies three years ago concluded that Russia interfered in the US 2016 elections to favour Trump. (IANS)
