Washington [US], October 22: US media reported late on October 21 that the meeting between President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin will not take place in the near future.
According to AP news agency, when asked about the summit with President Putin, US President Donald Trump said: "I don't want to have a wasted meeting. I don't want to waste time, so we'll see what happens." Mr. Trump said he would provide more information within the next two days.
TASS and CNN quoted a White House official as saying that the US government currently has no plans to hold a meeting between Presidents Trump and Putin to resolve the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The two sides have agreed on a venue in Budapest, Hungary .
At the same time, the US official added that a direct meeting between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov will also not take place.
The information was released after a phone call between Mr. Rubio and Mr. Lavrov on October 20. "Mr. Rubio and Mr. Lavrov had a productive phone call. Therefore, organizing another direct meeting between the two foreign ministers is not necessary," said a US official.
The White House stressed that President Trump remains committed to brokering a peace deal in Ukraine.
After a phone call with President Vladimir Putin on October 16, President Trump told reporters that he could meet the Russian leader "in about two weeks or later." However, the White House has not announced an official schedule.
In Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on October 21: "You cannot postpone an event that has not been scheduled yet."
CNN cited several sources as saying that Mr. Rubio and Mr. Lavrov expressed different expectations for ending the conflict in Ukraine during the phone call. On October 21, Mr. Lavrov rejected the idea of freezing the conflict on the front line to start negotiations. The idea of pausing the fighting and each side maintaining their positions was supported by Mr. Trump and Ukraine, but Moscow has repeatedly rejected it.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had "little interest in diplomacy" after the US failed to agree to deliver long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles to Kyiv.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov stressed on October 21 that preparations for "an important event" were still underway, saying that information about the summit being postponed was given in the form of "anonymous sources" with the aim of causing trouble.
Russia and the US have previously confirmed that the next summit between the two presidents will take place in Hungary, although neither side has announced a specific time.
Source: Thanh Nien Newspaper
