US President Donald Trump insists on holding talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in compliance with all diplomatic formalities, despite the fact that many members of the presidential team discourage him from doing so. The White House fears that a full-fledged meeting with Putin will hurt Trump at the height of the investigation into his possible ties with Russia.
The deep disagreements in the Trump administration regarding the upcoming meeting of the presidents of the two countries were reported by the AP. According to him, the discussion is being held as to which approach to Washington should be chosen by Washington.
Some officials from the president's entourage believe that the US administration should now maintain a distance and interact with Russia with great caution. Also, representatives of the State Department and members of the National Security Council call for restraint.
In the opposite camp, Trump and several other members of his team insist on a full-fledged bilateral meeting with Putin. They advocate for access to the media and the implementation of all protocol standards that are characteristic of such consultations. Only in this format, the parties can discuss all the accumulated issues of bilateral and international relations.
Some advisers recommend Trump to have a quick informal meeting with the Russian leader on the margins of the G20 summit, which will be held July 7-8 in Hamburg, Germany. Better yet, organize "strategic stability talks" between representatives of the American and Russian delegations. Such a format usually does not at all imply the presence of presidents. Supporters of this approach assure that Trump will otherwise be placed under additional fire of criticism at the height of the investigation of his alleged links with the Russian Federation, led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Congress.
AP notes that without full-fledged conversation between the presidents, Russian-American cooperation will not move from the dead center. So, held in 2015. The latest Russian-American bilateral meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and former White House boss Barack Obama led to the conclusion of important agreements between Russia and the United States on Syria.
So far neither the White House nor the Kremlin has given an unambiguous answer to the question whether the meeting of presidents will take place in the near future and if yes, then when, where and in what format it will be held. Washington has not previously ruled out that Trump will meet with Putin on July 7-8 in Hamburg.
However, the press secretary of the Russian president Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the meeting of the two leaders is not yet being prepared, as of July 7, nothing has been planned yet.
"We proceed from the premise that President Putin and President Trump will take part in the G-20 summit in Germany, and we can not exclude in this connection that, one way or another, they will of course meet in one form or another" on the fields " This summit. But there are no concrete agreements or preparations yet, "said the representative of the Kremlin.
The White House on Friday also refused to answer the question about whether the current American leader wants to meet with the president of Russia. "When and if the meeting takes place, we'll report on it," White House spokesman Sean Spicer said at a briefing..