Russian President Vladimir Putin said that dialogue with Donald Trump could be “constructive”, in comments released after his U.S. counterpart called for Russia to be re-admitted to the exclusive of the Group of Seven (G7) summit.
"Trump is a serious-minded person who knows how to listen to people and respond to their arguments,” Putin said in a Russian television interview.
“This leads me to believe that dialogue may prove to be constructive,” Putin added.
Trump called for a return to the body’s pre-2014 “G8” formula before flying to Canada to attend the G7 summit.
We have a world to run and in the G7, which used to be the G8, they threw Russia out, said the U.S. president.
"They should let Russia come back in."
But German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the EU members attending the summit all agreed that this should not happen unless there was "progress" on Ukraine.
Meanwhile, France called Trump's proposal did not seem “coherent”.
“As a reminder, the latest country to have imposed individual economic sanctions is the United States, so this proposal doesn’t seem coherent,” the Elysee source added.
The G7 summit, which groups Canada, the U.S., the UK, France, Italy, Japan and Germany, is being held in the town of La Malbaie in Quebec, Canada.
