Kremlin says Putin and Trump could meet before G20 in July

[January 30, 2017]    MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Monday it was too early to talk about any possible deals with the United States over sanctions on Russia, but that President Vladimir Putin could meet U.S. President Donald Trump before the G20 in July.

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with his Moldovan counterpart Igor Dodon at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, January 17, 2017. REUTERS/Sergei Ilnitsky/Pool

Putin and Trump spoke by phone on Saturday and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call on Monday the exchange had been a good one.

"(But) it's hardly possible to talk about any kind of deals (over sanctions)," said Peskov.

"To start with we must fix the date and time of a meeting between the two presidents. Aides are working on this now," he said, adding that a meeting could happen before a G20 summit scheduled to take place in Hamburg on July 7-8.

Peskov said that Putin and Trump had not discussed sanctions in their phone call on Saturday, their first conversation since Trump's inauguration.

But, he said: "We have seen a readiness to solve difficult problems through dialogue, which President Putin has long been calling for and unfortunately in previous years did not find a response (to)."

Peskov said that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi would attend the St Petersburg International Economic Forum in June.

(Reporting by Denis Pinchuk; Writing by Peter Hobson; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

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