U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are set to meet at the G20 summit in Germany next month, a Russian official said Wednesday.
Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, said the two will be in close proximity during the Hamburg meeting.
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“We assume that contact will take place since the two presidents will be at the same time in the same city, the same building, the same hall,” he said, according to RT. “It won’t be right, I guess, if they aren’t able to talk there and to discuss a lot of issues.”
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Speaking at a news conference with his German counterpart in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar, Lavrov said he had nothing to add to media speculation about any plans for a formal bilateral meeting at the summit.
Lavrov added that the summit would provide a good opportunity for the two leaders to talk about the Syrian conflict.
Earlier this week, the Associated Press reported that Trump was eager to meet the Russian leader with “full diplomatic bells and whistles” during their time in Germany. U.S. officials, however, were uneasy about the idea.
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Many administration officials believe the U.S. needs to maintain its distance from Russia at such a sensitive time – and interact only with great caution.
Some advisers recommended that the president instead do either a quick, informal “pull-aside” on the sidelines of the summit, or that the U.S. and Russian delegations hold “strategic stability talks,” which typically don’t involve the presidents.
While it appears a meeting between the leaders is imminent, it’s unclear what type of interaction it will be.
— With files from the Associated Press and Reuters
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