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Mikhail Gorbachev Likens ‘Positive’ Trump-Putin Meeting to his Own Dialogue with Ronald Reagan

July 10, 2017 (EIRNS)—In an interview with Italian journalist Giulietto Chiesa, as reported by TASS today, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev likened the "positive" Trump-Putin summit with his own meeting with the late President Ronald Reagan.

Gorbachev recalled that when he started disarmament talks with Reagan, he was told shortly after his initial contact that U.S. naval vessels had entered the Black Sea and were approaching the U.S.S.R.’s territorial waters, and he was asked how to respond. "I understood immediately that this was a provocation: someone in the Pentagon did not want that dialogue." Gorbachev described the meeting, and the handshake between Putin and Trump, as a positive sign. The opportunity represented by the meeting "should not be missed," he said. "It will be challenging, but this meeting is very important. It may become a starting point to deliver results [that] seemed to be unachievable."