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Putin Prepared to Provide Written Transcripts on Lavrov-Trump Talks | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Russian President Putin speaks during meeting with Italian PM Gentiloni at Bocharov Ruchei state residence in Sochi, Reuters


Amid exasperating controversy in the United States over Trump sharing classified information with the Russians, President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Moscow could provide a recording of the exchange between Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US President Donald Trump.

“If the US administration finds it possible, we are ready to provide a recording of the conversation between Lavrov and Trump to the US Congress and Senate,” Putin said when answering questions after talks with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni in the southern Russian city of Sochi.

Putin’s aide later suggested he had meant a written transcript.

Although Putin used the Russian word for audio recording at the press conference, his foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said that “audio is not made.”

“There is a recording kept by a special person present at conversations,” Ushakov told Russian news agencies.

Citing unnamed sources, The Washington Post reported that Trump had shared intelligence with Lavrov regarding an Islamic State group terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on airplanes.
Putin slammed critics who spread allegations about Trump’s ties with Russia.

“What else will the people generating such drivel and nonsense think of next?” he said. “They are shaking up their internal politics while using anti-Russian slogans.”

“They either don’t understand that they are hurting their own country, and then they are simply dumb, or they understand everything and then they are dangerous and corrupt,” Putin added.