President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he would likely meet with Russian leader Vladimir Putin at next month’s Armistice centenary in Paris.
“It’s being discussed right now,” Trump said, referring to a “Mike Bolton” currently in Moscow negotiating the talks (he was presumably referring to national security adviser John Bolton).
Referring to the recent US withdrawal from a nuclear arms treaty, Trump said “we were not treated well for many years. This should have been done a long time ago. I think something good can come out of that.”
He said a meeting with Putin would most likely materialize.
“I think we probably will. It hasn’t been set up yet but it probably will be,” he said.
Speaking from Moscow on Tuesday, Bolton said Putin expressed interest in meeting with Trump on the sidelines of the 100th anniversary of the WWI armistice on November 11 in Paris.
Bolton said the US side will look into making the “precise arrangements” for the meeting to happen.
Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov announced Tuesday that there is a preliminary agreement for the two leaders to meet in Paris, according to state-run news agency TASS.
Putin will meet with his American counterpart during his upcoming trip to Paris, the Kremlin aide said.
“During the consultations by the US Presidential adviser on national security, Bolton, with the representatives of our foreign policy and military-political team, a preliminary agreement was reached on the possibility of holding a meeting between the two presidents in Paris at the events commemorating the centenary of the First World War, Ushakov told reporters, according to TASS.
“And this agreement was confirmed by our President [Putin] during his conversation with Bolton,” he said.
Ushakov explained that both Presidents will hold the bilateral meeting after the celebration events in Paris.
The presidential aide added that the duration of the meeting depends on both Presidents. “It will be a normal bilateral meeting,” he said, according to TASS.
Trump and Putin met this summer in Helsinki, Finland, and questions still linger on Capitol Hill as to what the two leaders discussed or agreed to.
In July, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders hoped to welcome Putin to Washington for a second summit this fall.
“In Helsinki, @POTUS agreed to ongoing working level dialogue between the two security council staffs,” Sanders wrote in a tweet. “President Trump asked @Ambjohnbolton to invite President Putin to Washington in the fall and those discussions are already underway.”
But the administration scrapped that plan just days later when Bolton announced that the follow up meeting with Putin would no longer happen this year.
“The President believes that the next bilateral meeting with President Putin should take place after the Russia witch hunt is over, so we’ve agreed that it will be after the first of the year,” Bolton said in a statement at the time.
