AKIPRESS.COM - Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke Thursday with his US counterpart Donald Trump.

The Kremlin said the two presidents discussed US-Russia ties and increasing tensions on the Korean peninsula.

The phone conversation came after Putin used his annual news conference to praise the U.S. financial markets’ rise and other “quite serious achievements” under Trump, whom he said he was on first-name terms with, Bloomberg reported.

The White House said Trump thanked Putin for “acknowledging America’s strong economic performance.” The phone conversation came after a request from the U.S., the Kremlin said in an emailed statement.

The two leaders talked about the North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, as well as other bilateral issues, the Kremlin said without elaborating. Neither the White House nor the Kremlin readout of the call made any mention of the meddling issue.

On Dec. 1, Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents about his contacts with Russia. The plea documents made clear that Flynn was cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

They last spoke by phone in mid-November. That followed a brief in-person handshake on the sidelines of a Pacific leaders summit in Vietnam.