US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin vowed a fresh start to troubled relations between the two countries, at their first one-on-one summit in Helsinki, Finland yesterday. Both leaders held a two-hour long closed door meeting during which they discussed a number of issues, including Russian meddling in the 2016 US Presidential elections, Syria, Ukraine and China to trade tariffs and the size of their nuclear arsenals. They expressed a desire to co-operate on global challenges.

Standing alongside Mr Putin at a joint news conference, Mr Trump said, the Russian President delivered a powerful denial of any meddling in US elections. He said, Mr Putin privately made an incredible offer to help American investigators in their prosecution of 12 Russian intelligence officers accused of hacking crimes during the elections. The US President did not elaborate on the offer, although Mr Putin himself suggested that special counsel Robert Mueller could ask Russian law enforcement agencies to interrogate the suspects.

Later, in an interview to Fox News, the Russian President termed the probe by Robert Mueller as political games that should not be permitted to interfere with the US-Russia relations. Speaking through a translator, he said, the ties should not be held hostage to Mueller probe.