No ‘formal’ Trump-Putin meeting scheduled: White House
The White House says US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin will not hold a "formal" meeting at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Vietnam.
Citing "scheduling conflicts on both sides," White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters on Friday that no formal bilateral meeting would take place between the two leaders; however, declining to reject the possibility of some informal interaction and "pull-aside" conversations at the summit meeting.
"Regarding a Putin meeting, there was never a meeting confirmed, and there will not be one that takes place due to scheduling conflicts on both sides," Sanders said. "There is no formal meeting or anything scheduled for them."
"Now, they're going to be in the same place. Are they going to bump into each other and say hello? Certainly possible, and likely,” She added. “But in terms of a scheduled, formal meeting, there's not one on the calendar and we don't anticipate that there will be one."
The comments were made as the Russian side has for the last two days assured such a meeting will happen and claimed it could yield productive results.
"The meeting will take place on the sidelines," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, adding that some encounter would take place "one way or another."
"It is obvious that it will be a good opportunity to exchange opinions on the most vital issues, both international and bilateral," Peskov noted.
Before leaving the US for a five-nation tour of Asia, Trump said a sit-down was likely to take place and told reporters, "I think it's expected we'll meet with Putin, yeah."
The annual APEC summit, which is to be convened later in the day, is one of the largest gatherings on the annual diplomatic calendar, bringing together scores of world leaders and more than 2,000 CEOs.
The possible meeting would come amid a series of probes into Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 election, an issue that has plagued the Trump administration for months.
The US president has long denied any collusion between his campaign and Russian operatives during the last year’s White House race, which led to his rival Hillary Clinton’s loss.
Trump and Putin previously met twice in July at the G20 summit in Germany.
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