Moscow – Russian lawmaker Alexei Pushkov said Monday that President Donald Trump’s shift over the issue of establishing a joint U.S.-Russian cybersecurity group is a result of enormous pressure, under which the president has to work.
On Sunday, Trump said that he was not sure, whether the joint U.S.-Russian cybersecurity group he discussed with Russian President Vladimir Putin might really be set up.
“Facing an overall opposition to the idea of the joint cybersecurity group Trump has moved back. He is working under huge pressure.
“It is not his fault but misfortune,” Pushkov said on Twitter.
On Saturday, Putin said on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hamburg that there should be no situations of uncertainty in cybersecurity, or issues between Russia and the United States.
Putin called for the establishment of a working group that will be established between the two countries must exclude any speculation in the future.
The first meeting between Putin and Trump took place on `Friday in Hamburg, lasting more than two hours.
NAN reports that Trump on Sunday backtracked on his push for a cyber security unit with Russia, tweeting that he did not think it could happen, hours after his proposal was harshly criticized by Republicans who said Moscow could not be trusted.
Trump said on Twitter early on Sunday that he and Putin discussed on Friday forming “an impenetrable Cyber Security unit” to address issues like the risk of cyber meddling in elections.
The idea appeared to be a political non-starter.
It was immediately scorned by several of Trump’s fellow Republicans, who questioned why the United States would work with Russia after Moscow’s alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.
“It’s not the dumbest idea I have ever heard but it’s pretty close,” Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told NBC’s “Meet the Press” programme.
Ash Carter, who was U.S. defence secretary until the end of former Democratic President Barack Obama’s administration in January, told CNN flatly: “This is like the guy who robbed your house proposing a working group on burglary.”
Trump’s advisers, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, had recently sought to explain Trump’s cyber push.
