Comparing the White House and the Kremlin's summaries of the Trump-Putin phone call
Reading between the lines.
— -- The White House and the Kremlin released separate summaries of the Tuesday phone call between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, showing some slight differences in their respective readouts of the conversation.
The U.S. readout framed the conversation as a call "regarding Syria" where the two leaders reached similar conclusions.
"President Trump and President Putin agreed that the suffering in Syria has gone on for far too long and that all parties must do all they can to end the violence,” the White House release stated.
“The conversation was a very good one, and included the discussion of safe, or de-escalation, zones to achieve lasting peace for humanitarian and many other reasons.”
The Russian version did not speak to the suffering of the Syrian people directly, calling for "future coordination of Russian and U.S. actions to fight international terrorism in the context of the Syrian crisis."
"It was agreed to bolster the dialogue between the heads of the two nations’ foreign policy agencies in an effort to find ways to stabilize the ceasefire and make it durable and manageable,” the English translation of the Kremlin statement read.
“The aim is to create preconditions for launching a real settlement process in Syria. To that end, the Russian Foreign Minister and the U.S. Secretary of State shall promptly brief the countries’ leaders on any progress achieved.”
The U.S. statement said the two leaders "discussed at length" cooperation on issues relating to terrorism in the Middle East and "how best to resolve the very dangerous situation in North Korea."
The Russian statement reiterated the North Korea portion of that discussion.
"The dangerous situation on the Korean Peninsula was thoroughly discussed. The President of Russia called for restraint and an easing of tensions. It was agreed to organize joint work aimed at achieving diplomatic solutions and a comprehensive settlement of the problem," the Kremlin's statement said.
The two statements listed different possible upcoming interactions that the two leaders and their representatives could have. The U.S. statement said how they would be sending a representative to talks in Kazakhstan today and Thursday, while the Russian statement said Putin and Trump "agreed to continue their telephone contacts and spoke in favor of arranging a personal meeting during the G-20 Summit in Hamburg on July 7–8."
A senior White House official later confirmed to ABC News that Trump and Putin discussed the possibility of a meeting, but says the two did not commit to anything.
The official described it as more of a recognition that the two will be at the G-20 summit and it will present an opportunity for a possible meeting and it's still to be determined what, if anything, can be worked out.
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