Meeting Putin Would Give Trump More Accurate Insight On Ukraine, Syria - US State Senator

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 06th June, 2019) A meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin would allow US President Donald Trump to see things through someone else's eyes with the respect to the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine, Virginia State Senator Richard Black told Sputnik.

"I very much want President Trump to meet with President Putin. Because it's always helpful to see things through someone else's eyes," Black stated. "I think this is what bothered the foreign policy establishment so much the last time. If he meets with him in Osaka at the G20 meeting then I think they should discuss the Ukraine, because I think it would be very healthy for president Trump to see the other side of the issue."

Putin and Trump should also discuss Syria, the Senator continued, including the CIA operation dubbed Timber Sycamore that supplied terrorists with massive quantities of heavy weaponry. Although Trump ordered the CIA to shut down the Obama-era program in 2017, the reality is the US intelligence community is running a similar operation, Black said.

"So he [Trump] thinks that he ended that, but in fact during the recent conflict between Syria and the terrorists in the Idlib Province, Turkey has begun to flow tremendous number of armored vehicles and TOW [anti-tank] missiles to the terrorists," he said. "The president probably does not know that the CIA still retains houses that are within Turkey and that according to one report that was published, they greenlight it."

Black said he doubted Trump knows that even though program Timber Sycamore ended, "there are still other things that are the equivalent,"

"So, it would be very helpful for president Trump to receive information about what is actually happening. And I don't think that he gets honest information from the people briefing him now," Black said.

"If you look at the terrorists at the Idlib province, they are still fully supplied with armored vehicles, with TOWS, with all sorts of heavy weapons. They don't just build these in their little workshop somewhere.

Moreover, Black went on to say, every time Trump talks to Putin on Iran, he gets tremendous insight and information.

"Which is why the foreign policy establishment is aghast every time he speaks with President Putin," Black suggested.

Trump's critics complain that they do not know what is said in the meetings between Trump and Putin.

"Why should they know what he said? Let the two of them talk and I think it is always good when president Trump personally talks with people," he said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that it still remains uncertain if Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, will hold a meeting at the upcoming G20 summit, which the Japanese city of Osaka will host from June 28-29. The spokesman stressed that Putin had repeatedly expressed readiness to improve relations with the United States.

Trump and Putin held their first official meeting on July 7, 2017, on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany. The two leaders planned to meet on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina, late last year, but Trump canceled the meeting in light of the Kerch Strait incident. Trump said a summit with Putin was possible only after Russia released the Ukrainian sailors it detained over violating the Russian maritime border during that incident.

Meanwhile, Putin and Trump held phone talks earlier in May and discussed crafting a new nuclear arms control deal, increasing bilateral trade, denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula. Putin and Trump also addressed the conflicts in Venezuela and Ukraine.