Trump asks Putin about election meddling

HAMBURG, Germany - Eight months after an unprecedented U.S. election - one that U.S. intelligence agencies say the Russian government tried to sway - President Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin sat Friday for their first meeting, a friendly encounter that ended in confusion over whether Trump accepted assurances the Kremlin was innocent of wrongdoing during the campaign.

Trump, believed by the intelligence services to be the intended beneficiary of the Russian meddling, emerged from the extraordinary meeting - which went so long that Trump's wife tried to break it up - with a deal including Russia and Jordan on a partial Syrian cease fire.

The agreement would mark the first time Washington and Moscow operate together in Syria to try to reduce violence.

But there were no grand bargains on U.S. sanctions against Russia, the Ukraine crisis or other issues that have divided the nations.

The meeting, on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit, opened with Trump telling Putin it was an 'honor to be with you.” In the closed-door discussion, Trump pressed Putin 'on more than one occasion” about Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential elections, according to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who attended the two-hour-and-16-minute meeting.

Tillerson said 'President Putin denied such involvement” but agreed to organize talks 'regarding commitments of non-interference in the affairs of the United States and our democratic process.”

But Tillerson's counterpart, Russian Foreign Minster Sergei Lavrov, maintained Trump had heard out Putin's assurances that Moscow did not run a hacking and disinformation effort, and dismissed the entire investigation into the Russian role.

'President Trump said that this campaign has taken on a rather strange character, because after many months, whenever these accusations are made, no facts are brought,” Lavrov told Russian reporters. 'The U.S. president said that he heard clear statements from President Putin about this being untrue, and that he accepted these statements.”

U.S. lawmakers from both parties had urged Trump to raise the election meddling with Putin. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., the Senate minority leader, dismissed the outcome as 'disgraceful.”

Before the meeting, analysts in Moscow and Washington had said that any signal from Trump that Moscow and Washington can put aside past differences and forge a new relationship would be a victory for Putin. In Moscow, political leaders were celebrating Friday night.

'In some sense it's a breakthrough,” said Konstantin Kosachyov, chairman of the foreign relations committee in the upper house of the Russian parliament. 'Absolutely definitely psychologically, and possibly, practically.”

The world had waited for the first in-person encounter between the president whose campaign was facing an investigation into possible collusion with Russia in the election meddling, and the Kremlin leader who allegedly intervened in Trump's favor. But the presidents seemed intent on moving the relationship forward.

Trump and Putin designated top officials to collaborate on the creation of a framework that would prevent future political interference, Tillerson said, as part of a bilateral commission that also would discussion counterterrorism and resolution of the conflict in Ukraine.

Tillerson said they also agreed to a 'de-escalation agreement” regarding a section of southwestern Syria. Jordan was also part of it.

Syria's lengthy civil war has left more than 400,000 people dead and led to the exodus of hundreds of thousands more. The United States and Russia have supported opposite parties during the civil war.

Past cease-fires in Syria have not lasted long. Tillerson suggested he was skeptical this one would endure, either, saying, 'We'll see what happens.”

The meeting lasted much longer than expected. At one point, first lady Melania Trump entered to try to see if it could wrap up soon.

Putin and Trump did not appear to resolve the Kremlin's demand that the United States hand back two compounds that the Obama administration seized in late December in retaliation for Russia's actions in the U.S. campaign.

The Trump administration had already indicated it might return those compounds.

But Trump is facing bipartisan opposition at home to not make concessions to what many in Washington see as an adversary intent on weakening democratic institutions and diminishing U.S. global leadership.

The Senate recently voted 97 to 2 in favor of a sanctions amendment that would require congressional review of any decision to overturn existing policies on Russia, 'including the return of these two dachas.”