President Donald Trump will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin when the two leaders are both in Paris in November for a World War I commemoration.
“We will make precise arrangements on that, but it will happen in connection with the 100th anniversary of the celebration of the [World War I] armistice that the French are hosting on November the 11th,” National Security Advisor John Bolton told reporters on Tuesday, Roll Call reported.
Bolton is in Moscow this week and met with Putin on Tuesday, as well as the Russian defense minister.
TASS: there is a preliminary agreement for President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump to meet in Paris on November 11th, per Russian Presidential aide Yuri Ushakov.
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) October 23, 2018
If Trump and Putin meet in November, it would be their second private meeting this year, following the much-anticipated Helsinki summit earlier this year.
Putin suggested Tuesday that he could meet with Trump on Nov. 11 in Paris, when both leaders are in town for the World War I commemoration.
“It would be helpful to continue a direct dialog with the U.S. President on the sidelines of international events that are scheduled to take place in the near future, in Paris, for example,” Putin said Tuesday at the Kremlin, RT had reported.
Bolton reportedly then told Putin that Trump “would be glad” to have a meeting in Paris.
Trump has not yet confirmed that he would be meeting with Putin.
Trump and Putin are both traveling to Paris in November for a World War I commemoration, the 100th anniversary of the end of the war.
The two leaders last met in July at a summit in Helsinki, Finland.
On their Helsinki summit, Putin said Tuesday that it was “useful, partially tough… but eventually constructive,” RT reported Tuesday.
“It is startling to see that the U.S. is taking absolutely unprovoked steps against Russia, which we cannot call friendly,” he added.
Most recently, a Russian woman was charged for her alleged role in a Russian conspiracy scheme to interfere in U.S. elections and spread disinformation, including in the upcoming midterm elections in the U.S., the Justice Department announced in a statement last week.
And in September, U.S. Department of State put 33 Russian officials – including alleged spies, military and intelligence officials – on a sanctions blacklist, as well as sanctioned a Chinese entity for purchasing Russian military equipment.
The Trump Administration in August had imposed economic consequences on three shipping companies that allegedly aided North Korea in evading sanctions by re-routing shipments through ports in China and Russia, including Russian and Chinese shippers.
The State Department in August had also issued sanctions on Russia over what it says was a chemical attack on an ex-spy and his daughter in the U.K. The U.S. in March expelled 60 Russian diplomats and announced it would close the Russian consulate in Seattle, Washington, after Russia was accused of deliberately trying to poison an ex-spy in the U.K.
Trump and Putin had first met last year at a meeting in Hamburg, Germany, and then additionally met on the sidelines at an economic summit, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit (APEC), in Vietnam in November 2017. That meeting was said to have lasted under five minutes, during which the two leaders discussed Syria and allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, ABC News had reported.
Prior to APEC, Trump and Putin had met at the G20 Summit in Germany last July, in 2017.
Their brief greeting at the beginning of the G20 Summit was the first time the two leaders had met face-to-face. They met two additional times throughout the G20. One of the meetings was a private meeting lasting more than two hours, far surpassing the scheduled 30 minutes. The meeting was said to begin with a discussion of the alleged Russian interference into the 2016 Presidential election, to which Putin vehemently denied the country’s involvement. The other “meeting” took place at a dinner with other leaders present, which many media outlets attempted to characterize as a secret, undisclosed meeting.
This past June, the two met privately without any note-takers before their much-anticipated summit and spoke for more than two hours. They later held bilateral meetings and a press conference.
Russia has been accused of hacking and meddling in the 2016 Presidential election. Trump has said he would like to have a good relationship with Putin and Russia, and has never outright accused Russia of hacking U.S. elections.
The topic of Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014 was also on peoples’ minds, as well as the country’s alleged use of a nerve agent in the U.K. and its support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
