For weeks, the Kremlin and the White House have danced around the possibility of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin’s first face-to face meeting.
Yes, both presidents would be in Hamburg, Germany on July 7 and 8 for the G-20 meeting that brings together leaders of the major industrialized countries. Yes, a meeting was likely. No, there were no specifics.
Now it’s official: Moscow and Washington confirm the two presidents will meet at the summit, but there are no details yet on time, place or format.
Thursday, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN: “We’ve been saying for a long time that the two presidents, one way or another, will meet on the sidelines of the summit.”
Nothing has affected the presidency of Donald Trump as much as Vladimir Putin, and that significance helps to explain the sensitivity.
Trump and Putin need to talk: Disagreements over Ukraine, Syria, nuclear weapons and allegations of Moscow’s interference in the 2016 US election are pulling their countries to the brink of conflict.
Meetings like this are usually carefully choreographed, even if it’s a chance encounter in a hallway, let alone a sit-down, formal meeting with aides and interpreters. But neither side is giving any preview of how the two men might get together.
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov says the Kremlin is open to any meeting format “that is convenient for Americans.”
CNN
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