Trump and Putin set for Vietnam meeting

RUSSIAN president Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump have a full agenda for their likely encounter on the sidelines of a Pacific nations’ summit this week.

Mr Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said the Russian leader will meet Mr Trump during sessions of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ meeting which opens on Friday in Danang, Vietnam.

Mr Ushakov said the US and Russian leaders may also have an “extensive” one-on-one meeting.

“There are things to discuss and we are ready for it,” Mr Ushakov said, adding that the agenda would include the Syrian war, the stand-off over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes, and a crisis in bilateral ties. Mr Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russian and US officials are trying to carve out a time slot for the two leaders to meet separately. The probability for a face-to-face meeting of the two presidents is “quite high”, Mr Peskov said. Moscow’s hopes for an improvement of Russia-US relations under Mr Trump have been scuttled by the investigations into alleged collusion between Trump campaign officials and Russia. PRO-INDEPENDENCE protesters blocked roads and stopped commuter trains yesterday in Catalonia as part of a general strike to protest the jailing of ousted Catalan government officials and secessionist activists.