ADDS REMARKS BY US PRESIDENT
By Diyar Guldogan
WASHINGTON (AA) - US President Donald Trump said Thursday he believes his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, wants peace in the Ukraine war.
"I believe he wants peace. I believe that President Putin, when I spoke to him yesterday, I know him very well. Yeah, I think he wants peace. I think he would tell me if he didn't," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
His remarks came one day after he held separate telephone calls with Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to end the Russia-Ukraine war.
Asked whether he trusts Putin, Trump said, "I believe that he would like to see something happen. I trust him on this subject. I think he'd like to see something happen."
Trump and Putin agreed to stop the deaths in the war and to have their teams immediately start negotiations, during the call.
- Trump says he 'would love' to see Russia rejoin G7
Trump said Russia should be readmitted to the Group of Seven nations -- Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US.
Russia was suspended from the G8 in 2014 due to its annexation of Crimea.
He said that was a "mistake" for the then-Obama administration to expel Moscow from the club.
"I'd love to have them back. I think it was a mistake to throw them out. Look, it's not a question of liking Russia or not liking Russia. It was the G8,” said Trump. “They should be sitting at the table. I think Putin would love to be back.”
He reiterated his claim that the Russia-Ukraine war would have never started if he had been president.
"It's very possible that if that was the G8 you wouldn't have had the problem with Ukraine, and if I was president, you definitely wouldn't have had the problem with Ukraine. Russia would have never attacked Ukraine," he said.