WASHINGTON: U.S. President Donald Trump will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin next week at the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, the White House said Thursday.
U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster made the announcement at a White House briefing, adding that “there is no specific agenda. It’s really going to be whatever the president wants to talk about.”
The first face-to-face encounter between the two leaders will come amid tensions between the U.S. and Russia as the two countries hold differences on a slew of issues, including the Syrian conflict, the Ukrainian crisis and the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
In April, Trump said the U.S. was “not getting along with Russia at all” and the relations between the two countries “may be at an all-time low.”
Meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Washington in mid-May, Trump expressed his desire to build a better relationship between the two countries.
Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the U.S. is working to stabilize its relationship with Russia, which is “at an all-time low.”
“Our relationship is at an all-time low, and it’s been deteriorating further. Our objective is to stabilize that,” Tillerson told lawmakers at a Senate hearing.
