Trump congratulates Putin on re-election, says talks on "arms race" expected

WASHINGTON, March 20 (KUNA) -- President Donald Trump announced Tuesday, after a phone call with Russia President Vladimir Putin, that the two likely will meet in the near future.
"I had a call with President Putin, and congratulated him on ... his electoral victory," Trump said during an Oval Office appearance with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
"The call had to do also with the fact that we will probably get together in the not-too-distant future, so that we can... discuss the arms race." Trump noted that shortly after he was elected US president in November 2016, Putin "made a statement that being in an arms race is not a great thing... and we are spending 700 billion dollars there this year, our military, and a lot of it is that we are going to remain stronger than any other nation in the world by far." "We had a very good call, and I suspect that we'll probably be meeting in the not-too-distant future to discuss the arms race, which is getting out of control, but we will never allow anybody to have anything even close to what we have, and also to discuss Ukraine and Syria and North Korea and various other things," Trump said.
Asked about the upcoming deadline for renewing the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, Trump said, "The Iran deal is coming up. It's probably another month or so, and you're going to see what I do. But Iran has not been treating that part of the world or the world itself appropriately. A lot of bad things are happening in Iran. The deal is coming up in one month, and you will see what happens, OK." The White House released a statement on the Trump-Putin call, saying that the two "discussed the state of bilateral relations and resolved to continue dialogue about mutual national security priorities and challenges." "President Trump congratulated President Putin on his March 18 re-election, and emphasized the importance of de-nuclearizing the Korean Peninsula," the statement said. "The two leaders confirmed the need for the United States and Russia to continue our shared efforts on strategic stability." (end) rm.sd