'Russia sanctions to remain unless Syria, Ukraine issues resolved'

Describing his two-hour-long meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Hamburg on the sidelines of the G20 Summit on Friday as successful, Trump, in a series of tweets on his return from Hamburg, said he discussed a series of issues with Putin.

This was the first meeting between the two leaders.

Trump said he discussed with Putin alleged meddling of Russia in 2016 American elections, cyber security and negotiated a successful ceasefire in Syria. However, sanctions were not part of the discussion, the US president said.

"Sanctions were not discussed at my meeting with President Putin. Nothing will be done until the Ukrainian and Syrian problems are solved!," Trump said in one of the seven tweets to his more than 33 million followers.

Trump said the G20 Summit, which among others was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was a success.

"The G20 Summit was a great success for the US - Explained that the US must fix the many bad trade deals it has made. Will get done!," he said.

The rest of his tweets were about his discussion with Putin. "I strongly pressed President Putin twice about Russian meddling in our election. He vehemently denied it. I've already given my opinion.

"We negotiated a ceasefire in parts of Syria which will save lives. Now it is time to move forward in working constructively with Russia!," said the US president, adding that they also discussed cyber security.

In another tweet, Trump said, "Putin and I discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, and many other negative things, will be guarded and safe".

"Questions were asked about why the CIA and FBI had to ask the DNC 13 times for their SERVER, and were rejected, still don't have it.

"Fake News said 17 intel agencies when actually 4 (had to apologise). Why did Obama do NOTHING when he had info before election?," Trump said in separate tweets.

Russia has been supporting Syrian President Bashar al- Assad who has come under sharp criticism from the US and its western allies over Syrian forces' alleged use of chemical weapons on civilians.

The US has been criticising Russia after it annexed Crimea during a 2014 political upheaval in Ukraine. The Russian takeover of Crimea has resulted in clashes in some parts of eastern Ukraine.

Putin said on Saturday he thought his US counterpart Donald Trump had been satisfied with his assertions that Russia had not meddled in the US presidential election.

Putin also spoke warmly of Trump's personal qualities. The two men have spoken by telephone since Trump won the US presidential election last year, but had not met until the G20 summit in Hamburg. "I believe that we have established personal relations already," Putin told a news conference. "The TV Trump is very different from the person in reality. He is absolutely precise, he reacts as you would expect to his interlocutor, he analyses fairly quickly, answers questions that are put to him.

Meanwhile, the US ambassador to the United Nations insisted today that President Donald Trump had confronted Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin head-on over allegations of election interference, adding, "Everybody knows that Russia meddled in our elections."

Ambassador Nikki Haley said Trump had gone into the meeting "to basically look him in the eye, let him know that, yes, we know you did it and cut it out." But she declined to say what penalties Moscow might face for such meddling. Haley said the Russian denials were expected. "This is Russia trying to save face," she told CNN. "And "they can't.