President Donald Trump offered during a phone call last month to host Russia’s president Vladimir Putin at the White House for a summit, a senior Kremlin aide has told Russian news media today.
Both the White House and the Kremlin have previously said the two leaders had discussed a possible summit during a call on March 20, when Trump called Putin to congratulate him on his win in Russia’s presidential election. At a briefing Monday, the Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said that during that call Trump had suggested the summit could be held at the White House.
“When our presidents were talking on the telephone, Trump proposed to hold a first meeting in Washington, in the White House,” the aide, Yuri Ushakov was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying.
Ushakov said did not say whether Putin had accepted the proposal and said that no firm negotiations for a summit had yet started, but he said that Russia hopes that one will take place in some form soon, according to Russia’s state news agency, TASS.
“If everything will be OK, I hope that the Americans won’t withdraw their proposal to discuss the possibility of holding a summit,” Ushakov said, according to TASS.
Ushakov said Putin and Trump had not discussed a precise time frame for the meeting and that no specific negotiations around one had been held since the call. But he said that Russia believes such a summit is “highly important and needed for both countries and for the whole of the international community.”
Trump himself after the phone call told reporters that he hoped he and Putin would meet in the “not too distant future”. “We had a very good call,” Trump said at the time, saying that he expected to meet to discuss the “arms race, which is getting out of control.”
Since then relations between Russia and the U.S. and its allies have taken another sharp downturn, with Moscow and Washington expelling dozens of each others diplomats in a clash over the poisoning of a former spy in Britain. Russia expelled 60 U.S. diplomats and closed the American consulate in Saint Petersburg after the U.S. threw out 60 Russian diplomats and shut down the Russian consulate in Seattle.
Ushakov said the recent diplomatic confrontation between the U.S. and Russia triggered by the poisoning of the former spy Serge Skripal had made it difficult to discuss a summit. The U.S. has backed the British assessment that Russia bears responsibility for the poisoning of Skripal and his daughter using a military grade nerve agent in the town of Salisbury at the beginning of March.
“Against the background of these events, of course, it is difficult to discuss holding a summit,” said Ushakov, according to Tass. Ushakov referred to the U.S. expulsions as a “bug” in the two countries’ relations.
There also had been very little time to discuss the summit, Ushakov said.
This is a developing story. Please check back in for updates.
