Trump, Putin plan Paris summit
Short meeting to be first since controversial one-on-one in Helsinki
U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet next month in France, White House national security adviser John Bolton said Tuesday.
The two leaders will confer on the sidelines of ceremonies in Paris marking the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War, Bolton said. He spoke in Moscow, where he met with Putin and senior Russian officials including the foreign and defence ministers, and served notice that the United States will withdraw from a landmark Reagan-era arms control treaty.
“We will make the precise arrangements on that, but it will happen in connection with the 100th anniversary, the celebration of the armistice that the French are hosting on November the 11th,” Bolton told reporters.
The meeting, expected to be short, will be the two leaders’ first since a lengthier standalone summit in July. That session, in Helsinki, brought extensive criticism for Trump’s apparent willingness to accept at face value Putin’s denial that Russia had interfered in the 2016 U.S. election.
Both Trump and Putin also are expected to attend the Group of 20 economic gathering later in November, in Ar- gentina, and a short meeting between the two had been contemplated there. Trump also has extended an invitation to Putin to visit Washington, which administration officials said could yield a second full summit next year.
U.S. officials have said the purpose of continued meetings is to find areas of common ground, reduce tensions including over the war in Syria, and urge Russia to help enforce international sanctions on North Korea and Iran.
Trump is expected to spend about two days in France at the invitation of French President Emmanuel Macron.