“I don’t want to have a useless meeting. I don’t want to waste time. So let’s see what happens,” he told reporters at the White House on Tuesday. President Trump emphasized that “we have not made a decision yet.”
He said a decision on whether the Russia-US summit would be held in Hungary could be made within the next few days, TASS news agency reported.
“You never know what’s going to happen,” the US leader said, adding that the press would be informed “over the next two days about what we’re doing.” “There’s a lot going on,” he stressed.
On October 16, President Trump said after speaking by phone with President Putin that they had agreed to meet in Budapest soon. Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov also confirmed that Moscow and Washington would begin preparations for a new meeting between the two leaders, which could be held in the Hungarian capital “without delay.” According to him, this is “certainly a very important moment”. Ushakov said preparations for the talks would begin in the near future following a telephone conversation with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
In response, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán ordered the establishment of an organizing committee to facilitate the summit.
On October 20, Mr. Lavrov and Mr. Rubio spoke by phone to discuss potential steps to implement the understanding reached in the Putin-Trump phone call.
Later, CNN reported that the meeting between Lavrov and Rubio had been postponed indefinitely, potentially impacting the Budapest summit between Russia and the US.
As Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov pointed out, no concrete date has been set for the Russia-US summit, as it requires serious preparations.
MNA/