Putin, Trump to meet around G20 July summit

Putin was willing to meet his US counterpart in Slovenia, the birthplace of US First Lady Melania Trump, after the President of Slovenia offered to host the summit.

Moscow, Feb 13: Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump will probably meet in July around the G20 summit, the Kremlin announced on Monday.

"To start with, we must fix the date and time of a meeting between the two Presidents. Aides are working on this now," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a press conference.

Peskov said a meeting between the two leaders could happen before the G20 summit, scheduled to be held in Hamburg on July 7-8, but no specific agreements had been made so far, Efe news reported.

The Kremlin has dismissed the possibility that a Reykjavik summit was being prepared, similar to the historical summit that took place 30 years ago between US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Last week, the Russian President stated he was willing to meet his US counterpart in Slovenia, the birthplace of US First Lady Melania Trump, after the President of Slovenia offered to host the summit.

Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov had expressed his confidence in "casting light" over a possible Putin-Trump summit after his first meeting with the new US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

"Both Presidents have agreed that it would be desirable to meet as soon as possible. We were tasked with finding a time and place acceptable to both. We are working on it now," Lavrov said.

IANS