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MOSCOW, Dec. 14-- Russian president Vladimir Putin said Thursday he believed in U.S. President Donald Trump's ability to honor promises made during his election campaign on getting relations between Moscow and Washington back on track. "I hope that he still wants it and I assume that finally we will normalize our relations in the interests of the American and Russian peoples," Putin said at his annual press conference. Putin said that Russia and the United States had many ways of "doing things much more efficiently than before by joining efforts in the interests of our peoples." These, according to the Russian president, include joint struggle against common threats such as ecological issues, proliferation of mass destruction weapons and all types of crises in various regions of the world including the Middle East and the Korean Peninsula. Putin praised the recent declaration by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson of Washington's readiness for direct contacts with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). He expressed hope that Russia and the United states would be able to cooperate on the basis of common sense in many issues including on a settlement on the Korean Peninsula. | 
