The process of preparing a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin has stalled amid reports that expected pre-meeting between key foreign affairs aides of the two leaders, who were supposed to determine the summit’s agenda, have been postponed.
This was reported by American media and journalists on Tuesday, citing sources, according to Ukrinform.
On Thursday, after a conversation with Putin, Trump stated that they “agreed that there will be a meeting of our High Level Advisors, next week,” CNN recalls. On the U.S. side, the team was to be led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
At the same time, NBC News chief White House correspondent Garrett Haake reported on X on Tuesday, citing a White House representative, that “planning towards that Trump/Putin summit in Budapest is ‘on hold’ at the moment.”
According to him, the first phone call between Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was “productive,” but the U.S. President believes that “both sides aren’t ready enough to talk to justify moving forward right now.”
The British newspaper The Times also noted on Tuesday that the Trump-Putin meeting in Budapest is in doubt after it became known that the U.S. and Russia are still disputing details of the preliminary meeting between Marco Rubio and Lavrov.
As Ukrinform reported, according to a White House source, the expected meeting between Rubio and his Russian counterpart Lavrov has been postponed. It was initially unclear why the talks were canceled this week, while another source said that Rubio and Lavrov had different expectations regarding a possible cessation of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Photo: AA