Trump to meet Putin at G20 summit next week

President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold their first meeting as heads of state during the Group of 20 (G20) summit next week in Hamburg.

The first in-person meeting of the two men since Trump took office in January will come as relations between the nations are at their lowest in decades. Disputes between the former Cold War rivals continue to simmer over the war in Syria, Moscow’s intervention in Ukraine, US sanctions and probes into Russian meddling in the US election, and possible collusion between Trump associates and Russian officials.

White House National Security Advisor H R McMaster, who announced the meeting on Thursday, declined to say whether Trump would raise the issue of Russian interference in last year’s election when the two leaders meet. He said there was no specific agenda yet set. McMaster said the Trump administration is focusing its relations with Russia on simultaneously confronting Putin’s destabilising behaviour, whether through incursions in nearby countries such as Ukraine or political subversion of the US and its allies, and nurturing areas of cooperation, such a combating Islamic extremists.

Trump also will use the annual G20 summit of leaders of major economies for meetings with at least eight other foreign leaders including Chinese President Xi Jinping, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Theresa May.

Congressional lawmakers are seeking to solidify sanctions against Russia in the face of apparent resistance from the White House, and as Russia’s support for the Syrian regime exacerbates tensions with the US and other nations.

“Russia is a major power and it can play a constructive or a not-constructive role,” said Jeffrey Rathke, a State Department official in the Obama administration and deputy director of the Europe Program for the Center for Strategic and International Studies.