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Putin, Trump to continue ‘useful contacts’: Kremlin aide
MOSCOW, July 24, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump have agreed to continue
their “useful contacts” and may meet by year’s end, a Kremlin aide said
Tuesday, as tensions rise in Washington over the direction of the US leader’s
Russia policy.
Last week’s summit between Trump and Putin in the Finnish capital
Helsinki unleashed political turmoil in the United States, with some critics
accusing the US president of betraying America’s interests.
Despite the furore Trump said he was looking forward to hosting Putin in
Washington and the White House said such a meeting may come this autumn.
Putin’s top foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said that several days after
the Helsinki meeting the Kremlin received a US proposal to organise a new
summit in Washington “at the end of the year”.
“During their meeting in Helsinki, the presidents reached an
understanding that these useful contacts should be continued,” Ushakov told
reporters.
He said the proposal had been passed on to the Russians by Trump’s
national security advisor John Bolton.
Ushakov said the two sides had not yet started work on organising the
Washington meeting.
“Practical aspects will be discussed later,” he added.
Bolton is set to meet with Russian officials in August but it was not
clear so far where that meeting would take place, Ushakov said.
Putin and Trump may also meet on the sidelines of a G20 summit in the
Argentine capital Buenos Aires in late November-early December, or at another
international event, the advisor added.
Putin has slammed the US opposition to Trump as “pathetic, worthless
people” who are willing to sacrifice Russian-US ties for their own ambitions.
BSS/AFP/RY/1935 hrs