Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday gave a cautiously positive response to President Trump’s calls for his country’s readmission to what used to be the G8, and played down what he called the “internal problems” in the G7 following the forum’s tumultuous summit in Canada.
Putin also said he was ready for a face-to-face meeting with Trump “as soon as the U.S. side is ready.”
Speaking to Russian reporters in China, he repeated recent statements that a meeting between himself and Trump would be useful.
“The president of the United States has repeatedly said that he considers this meeting expedient, and I agree that this is indeed the case.”
In their most recent phone conversation, he said, Trump had expressed concern about the threat of a
renewed arms race, and added, “I agree with him.”
Putin said the Russian foreign ministry and State Department need to work together, but that “personal meetings are certainly necessary as well.”
“As soon as the American side is ready, this meeting will be held immediately, depending on my work schedule.”
Putin said the “specific content” of such a summit was more important that technicalities like choice of venue. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz recently offered to host a Putin-Trump meeting in Vienna.
The Russian president was speaking after a Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Qingdao, China, which in contrast to the G7 gathering in Quebec presented a show of unity among members of the eight-nation Asian economic and security grouping.
The G7 is a forum of the world’s most advanced economies, comprising the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan. Russia was admitted into what became the G8 in 1998 but was suspended in 2014 in response to its annexation of Crimea.
Ahead of the G7 summit, Trump dismayed France, Britain and Germany by questioning the 2014 decision to suspend Russia, saying the group “should let Russia back in, because we should have Russia at the negotiating table.”
(Read more)
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