Moscow and Washington are in talks to create a joint cyber security working group, Russia's RIA news agency reported on Thursday, citing Andrey Krutskikh, a special presidential envoy on cybersecurity.
U.S. President Donald Trump said earlier this month he had discussed the idea of creating such a group with President Vladimir Putin at a summit of the Group of 20 nations in Hamburg, Germany.
But the idea was greeted with incredulity by some senior Republicans who said Moscow could not be trusted - and the U.S. president later tweeted that he did not think it could happen.
"The talks are underway ... different proposals are being exchanged, nobody denies the necessity of holding the talks and of having such contacts," Krutskikh said, according to RIA.
Svetlana Lukash, a Russian official who was at the Hamburg summit, said earlier this month that the two presidents had agreed to discuss cyber security questions, either via the United Nations or as part of a working group.
Okay so this is a Russian news agency so the first thing you think is "take it with a grain of salt."
And that is always a good idea, however also keep in mind that the Russian news agencies have reported on a number of things kept from the US press, such as that meeting with the Russian agents in the White House for instance.
Besides Trump seemed to be perfectly fine with the idea before he was lambasted by his fellow conservatives. But seriously, why would we think that any of that would have changed his mind?
Speaking of news coming out of Russia, there is also a report that Trump had more meetings with Putin than the two we have learned of thus far:
President Trump may have held more meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Group of 20 (G-20) summit earlier this month, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview published Friday. (Lavrov you might remember was one of the Russian agents that Trump invited into the White House.)
“They might have met even much more than just three times,” Lavrov told NBC News.
Lavrov did not deny the possibility of additional meetings but did dismiss the importance of the encounters, comparing it to children interacting at a kindergarten.
“When you are bought by your parents to a kindergarten do you mix with the people who are waiting in the same room to start going to a classroom?” he asked.
Wait, "There might have been much more than three?" When did we hear there were three?
So the American media was left in the dark about multiple meetings, but the Russians know all about them?
Well that certainly does not give you any confidence that the idea of a joint cyber security unit is out of the question, now does it?
Source http://ift.tt/2gRpnpy
