Trump’s strong priority is US-Russia ties: Analyst

One of the top priorities of US-elect President Donald Trump is to improve the damaged relations between the United States and Russia, says a political analyst.

James Jatras, a former adviser to the US Senate, made the remarks on Monday when asked about Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov who has said that Moscow is ready to mend ties with Washington under the Trump administration.

"The Russian side is ready, without wasting time, to begin the work to fix the current state of relations with the US, which have been taken to a crisis, a deadlock by the outgoing administration," Russia's TASS news agency quoted Ryabkov as saying on Monday.

According to Jatras, “Throughout the US presidential campaign, president-elect Donald Trump and before that, candidate Trump, has made it very clear that he expects to mend ties with Moscow and that we should... get along with Russia, and he said specifically that he expects to get along with President Vladimir Putin.”

“It seems to be a very strong priority for him, even he was under tremendous assault and pressure from the Hillary Clinton campaign and from the media with this vow, a warm attitude toward Russia, and (he) was in fact being accused of being a Russian agent and influenced by various people, he did not back off from it,” the Washington-based told Press TV.

He referred to Trump's previous statements about  the fact  that Russia, Iran and the Syrian government  are the ones truly fighting the Daesh Takfiris, saying, “This seems to be a deeply-held commitment and something that Mr. Trump feels very strongly about so I expect and I very much hope that there would be a reciprocal willingness in both Moscow and Washington under the new American administration to mend some ties and frankly as Mr. Trump says to make a deal."

Meanwhile, Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed Monday the importance of “normalizing” ties between Moscow and Washington.

According to a statement released by the Kremlin, the two held their first ever talk during a phone conversation initiated by Putin, who contacted Trump to “offer his congratulations on winning a historic election."

The two also agreed to make provisions for a “personal meeting," and to keep in touch by phone, read the statement.

Both Putin and Trump had acknowledged "the extremely unsatisfactory state of Russian-US relations at present" and "declared the need for active joint work to normalize them," it added.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk