Trump, Putin Hold ‘Productive Talks, ‘Lengthy’ Discussions on Syria

The United States has no extradition treaty with Moscow and can not compel Russian Federation to hand over citizens.

Trump also congratulated France for winning the Football World Cup for the second time and congratulated Putin for a "truly great" tournament.

Both leaders met briefly for a press photo op and spoke with the press prior to starting the meeting.

The leaders of the USA and Russian Federation are holding a summit at the Baltic port city of Helsinki.

Trump spent the weekend in Scotland at his resort in Turnberry, golfing, tweeting and granting an interview to CBS News in which he put the European Union at the top of his list of biggest global foes. Question for President Trump as he meets Putin: "Do you know which team you play for?" "We spent a great deal of time talking about it. Putin feels strongly about the issue and has an interesting idea", he told reporters after one-on-one talks.

Trump said the summit agenda will include among other things; Russia's involvement in Ukraine, Iranian interference in Syria, and Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election.

Trump did mention trade, China, nuclear arms reduction and other security matters as ones he meant to discuss first in the one-on-one session then in another meeting that will include staff from both sides. Undeterred, the American president was set to go face to face with Putin, the authoritarian leader for whom he has expressed admiration.

The two are scheduled to hold a joint press conference later in the day on Monday.

Shortly ahead of the breakfast meeting, Trump had tweeted saying that his country's relationship with Russia "has never been worse", due to allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 USA elections.

"Somebody said are you friends or enemies?" Piers that's a good thing, that's not a bad thing.

"I think the DNC should be ashamed of themselves for allowing themselves to be hacked", Trump told CBS News. "But I could name others, also".

He had said earlier that previous U.S. administrations - and not Moscow - were to blame for a steep decline in U.S. -Russia relations in recent years.

This morning, Trump tweeted: "Our relationship with Russian Federation has NEVER been worse thanks to many years of US foolishness and stupidity and now, the Rigged Witch Hunt!"

"Our relationship with Russian Federation is strained because of the very malign actions he's refusing to take Russian Federation to task for", tweeted Democratic U.S. Representative Gregory Meeks, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

In his tweets, Mr Trump continued to undermine the investigation and blamed his predecessor, Barack Obama, for failing to stop Russia's efforts to sway the 2016 election in Trump's favour.