U.S. President Donald Trump has said he’ll be meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin during the upcoming Group of 20 (G20) summit to be held in Japan in June.
Trump made the comments on May 13 during remarks to reporters ahead of talks with visiting Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
However, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted by Russian news agency Interfax as saying that Washington had not requested a meeting between Trump and Putin.
“There have been no requests. But there have been no agreements yet as well,” Peskov told Interfax.
Earlier, the Russian newspaper Kommersant, citing an unnamed U.S. State Department official, said that the White House had made the request to the Kremlin for Trump to meet with Putin.
Trump’s comments came one day before Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is scheduled to arrive in the Black Sea city of Sochi for talks with Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
In remarks to reporters last week, a senior U.S. State Department declined to say whether Pompeo would be making arrangements for the Trump-Putin meeting.
Earlier this month, Putin and Trump spoke by phone, where they discussed Venezuela, Ukraine, Iran, and the conclusion of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in U.S. elections.
Trump also said he would be meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping during the G20 summit. Washington and Beijing are locked in an escalating trade war that has rattled stock markets, and spooked investors concerned about long-term damage to trade between the world’s two largest economies.
