President Donald Trump speaks on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Saturday, Jan. 28, 2017, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington.

The phone call between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday was a display of mutual respect between the two men, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday.

In the call, their first conversation since Trump’s inauguration, Putin and Trump agreed to try to rebuild US Russia ties and to cooperate in Syria.

Trump has said he wants a rapprochement with Moscow if he can get along with Putin, who says he is also keen to mend ties.

The Kremlin said it was too early to talk about any possible deals with the United States over sanctions on Russia, but that Putin could meet d Trump before the G20 in July.

“(But) it’s hardly possible to talk about any kind of deals (over sanctions),” said Peskov.

“To start with we must fix the date and time of a meeting between the two presidents. Aides are working on this now,” he said, adding that a meeting could happen before a G20 summit scheduled to take place in Hamburg on July 7-8.

Peskov said that Putin and Trump had not discussed sanctions in their phone call on Saturday, their first conversation since Trump’s inauguration.

But, he said: “We have seen a readiness to solve difficult problems through dialogue, which President Putin has long been calling for and unfortunately in previous years did not find a response (to).”

Peskov said that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi would attend the St Petersburg International Economic Forum in June.

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