Putin explains why he did not hold his summit with President Trump

MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday attributed the difficulty of arranging a summit with his US counterpart, Donald Trump, to what he called political debates in the United States.

Trump said in March he would meet Putin soon. But since then relations have been strained, mainly fragile, between Washington and Moscow because of the conflict in Syria and the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain.

Putin said last month that the proposed summit had been stalled by problems and was not at the moment.

In response to a question from the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORS) about the reason for the preparations for the summit, he said: "You have to ask our counterparts in the United States, in my opinion, because of the violent domestic political records in the United States."

Trump is under pressure from a probe by special investigator Robert Mueller whether Russia intervened in the 2016 presidential election and whether it colluded with the Trump campaign, which Trump and Moscow deny.