Trump, Putin discuss formation of 'cyber security unit'
The proposal was met with a fair amount of scepticism by the president’s critics
US president Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin held face-to-face talks for the first time on Saturday
US president Donald Trump has said that he and Russian president Vladimir Putin discussed the possibility of forming a “cyber security unit” during their talks at the G20 summit in Hamburg.
In a Tweet, the president said that the “impenetrable” unit, he said, would ensure that “election hacking and many other negative things will be guarded”.
Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida immediately criticized the move on Twitter, saying Putin was not a trusted partner.
Partnering with Putin on a "Cyber Security Unit" is akin to partnering with (Syrian President Bashar al) Assad on a "Chemical Weapons Unit," he wrote.
The summit saw the two leaders meet and hold talks in person for the first time since Trump was elected. In another tweet following the talks, Trump said it was now time to work constructively with Moscow, as he claimed had happened when working on a Syrian ceasefire which came into force on Sunday.
During last November’s presidential election campaign, Trump had repeatedly stated that it was his intention to restore good relations with Russia – a country the U.S. intelligence community, as well as former president Barack Obama have accused of interfering in the US elections through hacking.
The Trump campaign has been accused of working with Russian agents in order to sway the election his favour, with an investigation by special counsel, Robert Mueller, and several U.S. congressional committees currently looking into whether there was any such interference.
Following the meeting between the two leaders, Trump said he had raised allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election with Putin and had “strongly pressed” Putin on the matter.
Both Russia and the Trump campaign have denied there was any collusion.
