The anticipated meeting between President Donakd Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin may not happen as quickly as expected.
According to a report on CNN, the delay is due to the tabling of a pre-meeting between the world leaders’ key foreign affairs aides that was to take place this week.
On Thursday, Trump wrote on Truth Social after a call between Trump and Putin when they“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.
That meeting between Rubio and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, however, has been stalled for now, a White House official told CNN. It was not clear why the meeting was delayed.
A source revealed Rubio and Lavrov had differing expectations on how the war between Russia and Ukraine would come to an end.
Trump and Putin are expected to hold a summit in Budapest, Hungary. It is unclear how the delayed meeting would effect the summit.
“President Trump has consistently worked towards finding a peaceful and diplomatic resolution to end this senseless war and to stop the killing,” White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said. “He has courageously engaged parties on all sides and will do everything in his power to achieve peace.”
Rubio and Lavrov spoke via phone on Monday to talk about “next steps” after the two presidents talked last week.
According to a brief U.S. State Department readout of the call, 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 Kremlin said the call was a “constructive discussion” dealing with “possible concrete steps to implement the understandings” Trump and Putin reached.
A source said, Rubio will probably need t recommend the Putin-Trump meeting happen next week. Rubio and Lavrov could speak again this week.
Putin and Trump met earlier this year in Anchorage, Alaska. The two met for about three hours with no resolution.
Trump has called Ukraine and Russia to “stop the war immediately.”
“You go by the battle line, wherever it is. Otherwise, it’s too complicated. You’ll never be able to figure it out. You stop at the battle line,” Trump said Saturday.
