“He is a very flamboyant man, very talented, no doubt about that…”
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The Russian president described Trump as the “absolute leader of the Presidential race” during a three-hour televised news conference.
Getty ImagesDonald TrumpPresident Barack Obama’s top spokesman suggested on Thursday that Donald Trump may not want Russian President Vladimir Putin’s endorsement.
“With the beginning of the Russian air strikes in Syria, what President Putin has achieved is breaking from isolation and being regarded as an important player, a party to attempt to solve the Syrian crisis”, she says.
Putin said he did not rule out that Ankara was acting with tacit approval from Washington, possibly so that the United States would look the other way to let Turkey “go onto Iraqi territory and occupy part of it”.
“I think that I would probably get along with him very well”, Trump said of Putin in an October interview with CNN.
Republican candidate Donald Trump called earlier this week for a “complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on”.
“On the level of bilateral state relations I don’t see prospects to improve ties with the current Turkish leadership”, said Putin at his annual press briefing Thursday, “but on humanitarian level – I certainly do”.
He urged joint work on Syria’s new constitution, adding a “transparent” mechanism was needed that will help Syrians conduct democratic elections and elect a leader. “He says that he wants to move to another level relations, a deeper level of relations with Russia”, Putin said.
Stoltenberg said Putin’s remarks also meant that Moscow clearly had “a special responsibility” in ensuring implementation of the Minsk peace accords aimed at halting the conflict that erupted in April a year ago.
“It’s not our affair to determine his worthiness, that’s a matter for the American voters”, Putin said. Putin said the campaign will continue until work begins on a political settlement.
Trump responded that he was honored.
“It is always a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond”, he said.
“We don’t know that for sure, but if someone in the Turkish leadership wanted to suck up to the Americans, I’m not sure whether they did the right thing or not”, he said.
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Putin and Trump also share a love of the limelight, although Putin’s public appearances generally have an element of control and calculation at odds with Trump’s apparent hair-trigger outbursts. But he would not weigh in on whether a Trump presidency would change U.S.-Russian relations.
