Trump-Putin meeting may be postponed - media
President Donald Trump’s hopes for a quick meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin may be stalled after sources familiar with the matter told CNN that an expected pre-meeting between the world leaders’ key foreign affairs aides this week had been tabled, CNN reports.
It is noted that on October 16 Trump said after a call with Putin that the two “agreed that there will be a meeting of our High Level Advisors, next week.”
“The United States’ initial meetings will be led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, together with various other people, to be designated,” he wrote on Truth Social.
Anticipated meeting between Rubio and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov has been put on hold for the time being, a White House official said.
It was not immediately clear why the meeting was no longer taking place this week, though one of the sources said Rubio and Lavrov had divergent expectations about a possible end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In particular, yesterday, on October 20, they had a phone call and discussed “next steps” to follow up on the call between their two presidents last week about a possible end to the conflict in Ukraine.
“Rubio emphasized the importance of upcoming engagements as an opportunity for Moscow and Washington to collaborate on advancing a durable resolution of the Russia-Ukraine war, in line with President Trump’s vision,” the message reads.
However, a source familiar with the situation said that after the call, officials believe that Russia's position on the war in Ukraine has not changed enough.
The source said, Rubio is not likely to recommend the Putin-Trump meeting move forward next week, but Rubio and Lavrov could speak again this week.