The much anticipated meeting between United States President, Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin began on Monday in Helsinki, Finland.

Both leaders made public remarks with translators and Trump repeatedly expressing optimism that the talks would yield positive results just before they entered private discussions.

“I think we have great opportunities together as two countries that, frankly, have not been getting along very well for the last number of years. I think we will end up having an extraordinary relationship,” Trump told reporters.

While Trump outlined several topics that he hoped the pair would discuss, he did not however bring up Russia’s perceived interference in the 2016 US presidential election. .

The Russian president, who was about an hour late for the meeting spoke first as the pair stood next to each other for photos before sitting on adjacent chairs. They did not shake hands at the outset of their public remarks

Trump started his remarks by congratulating the Russian president on the successful hosting of the World Cup which France won on Sunday.

“First of all, Mr. President, I’d like to congratulate you on a really great World Cup, one of the best ever from what everybody tells me, one of the best ever. And also, for your team itself doing so well.

“I watched quite a bit- in the United States we call it soccer- and I watched quite a bit of it and I watched the entire final and the semifinals. They were really spectacular games, but it was beautifully done, so congratulations on that,” Trump said to Putin.

He further outlined a series of topics he hoped to discuss with Putin.

“Most importantly, we have a lot of good things to talk about. … We have discussions on everything from trade, to military, to missiles, to nuclear, to China. … We’ll be talking a little bit about China, our mutual friend President Xi.

“I’ve been saying- and I’m sure you’ve heard over the years — and as I campaigned, that getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing.

“I really think the world wants to see us get along. We are the two great nuclear powers. We have 90 percent of the nuclear [weapons], and that’s not a good thing. It’s a bad thing. I think we hopefully can do something about that because it’s not a positive force. It’s a negative force. So, we’ll be talking about that among other things.

“And with that, the world awaits and I look forward to our personal discussion, which I think begins now,” Trump said, adding, “We all have a lot of questions and hopefully we’ll come up with answers. Most importantly, it’s great to be with you,” Trump added.

In the hours leading up to the meeting, Trump sent a couple of tweets criticizing the US investigation into Russian interference in the election, describing it as a ‘rigged witch hunt’.