Trump unsure if he will meet with Putin in Paris

US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin shake hands as they hold a joint news conference after their meeting in Helsinki, Finland, July 16, 2018. [File, Reuters]

US President Donald Trump said on Monday he was unsure if he would meet with Russian leader Vladimir Putin during a visit to Paris this month, but he will meet him at the Nov. 30-Dec. 1 summit of the Group of 20 nations in Argentina.

“We haven’t set anything up yet. We don’t know that that’s going to be the right place. I’m going to be in Paris for other reasons. But we will be meeting at the G20,” Trump said at Joint Base Andrews before leaving on a campaign trip.

“I’m not sure we’ll have a meeting in Paris. Probably not.”

A Kremlin foreign policy aide said last month that a preliminary agreement had been reached on a meeting between Putin and Trump in Paris on Nov. 11.

The aide, Yuri Ushakov, told reporters that Putin and Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, who was in Moscow for talks on Oct. 23, had confirmed a preliminary agreement for the two heads of state to meet in Paris.

A Kremlin aide said on Friday the two leaders would meet for a long session on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Argentina in a month.