Kremlin: Trump invited Putin to the White House
HISTORIC GESTURE? Move likely to sharpen divisions in US on ties with Russia WASHINGTON/MOSCOW:
US President Donald Trump proposed a White House summit when he called Russian President Vladimir Putin last month, prior to the mass expulsion of Russian diplomats from the US, a top Kremlin aide said Monday.
“Trump proposed holding a meeting at the White House in Washington,” Putin’s top foreign policy aide, Yury Ushakov, told reporters.
“This is quite an interesting, positive idea.”
On March 20, Trump called Putin to congratulate him on his re-election, and the US leader told reporters afterwards that the two would “probably get together in the not-too-distant future.”
In calling Putin, Trump ignored explicit advice from his national security advisers not to do so, The Washington Post has reported, quoting officials familiar with the call.
Ushakov said on Monday, however, that the two sides have not had any “concrete discussions” about the summit since that rare Trump-Putin phone conversation.
“It was Trump himself who proposed holding the meeting,” Ushakov said.
“But after that a new breakdown in our bilateral ties has taken place, the diplomats have been expelled.”
He expressed the hope that Russia and the United States could return to “constructive and serious dialogue.”
“I hope the Americans won’t abandon their proposal to discuss the possibility of holding the summit,” he said.
After the call, Washington expelled 60 Russian diplomats and shut down a Russian consulate in Seattle, joining Britain’s allies in responding to the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the English city of Salisbury on March 4.
Moscow responded by sending home 60 US diplomats and closing Washington’s consulate in Saint Petersburg.
Washington has, however, said Russia is free to apply to accredit more diplomats to replace those expelled.
The two sides have had no preparatory discussions since the March 20 call, because of their tit-for-tat expulsions of the diplomats.
The prospect of Putin visiting Washington is likely to sharpen divisions in the US over relations with Russia amid continued tensions regarding alleged Kremlin meddling in the 2016 US presidential elections. Russia denies meddling.
Trump won bipartisan praise in Congress for ordering the expulsion last week of 60 Russian diplomats regarded as spies, the most since 1986, in a display of unity with Europe after the UK blamed Putin’s government for the March 4 nerveagent attack on Skripal.