The Kremlin says it has received formal invitation for Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet with President Trump in Washington at the end of the year, according to a breaking news report from Russian state-run RT.
While making the announcement a Russian official suggested “other options to meet” ahead of a potential Putin White House visit, saying another summit could be needed prior to a Washington meeting, possibly at the G20 in Argentina this November.
“Maybe there will be other international events which Trump and Putin will take part in,” Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters after announcing Trump’s invitation had been received.
The Kremlin announcement comes after Trump at the end of last week asked his UN Ambassador, John Bolton, to formally invite Putin to Washington in the fall amid ongoing dialogue between the two security council staffs, according to a statement by White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
In Helsinki, @POTUS agreed to ongoing working level dialogue between the two security council staffs. President Trump asked @Ambjohnbolton to invite President Putin to Washington in the fall and those discussions are already underway.
— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) July 19, 2018
Last week, Trump declined a proposal by Putin for an “interrogation exchange” by which the United States Intelligence Community (IC) would be allowed to witness the Moscow interrogation of 12 Kremlin officials indicted last week by special counsel Robert Mueller, in exchange for the Russian interrogation of US-Russia “reset” architect, former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul.
As we noted previously, one week after McFaul was appointed as President Obama’s envoy to Moscow, then-former President Putin “declared that he would return from the shadows and run for President again in March, 2012,” according to The New Yorker.
President Trump said last Thursday that he wants to meet again with Putin to begin implementing ideas they discussed in Helsinki.
Trump called the summit with Putin a “great success, except with the real enemy of the people, the Fake News Media,” adding “I look forward to our second meeting so that we can start implementing some of the many things discussed, including stopping terrorism, security for Israel, nuclear proliferation, cyber attacks, trade, Ukraine, Middle East peace, North Korea and more.”
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