The US president is anticipated to attend the North Atlantic Treaty Organization(NATO) summit organized next month in Brussels and has made plans to visit the UK as well. Soon after this, Trump is planning to meet the Russian leader Vladimir Putin in a summit in Europe. Though the two leaders have met twice during international conferences last year, a formal summit meeting is yet to happen.
The meeting is reportedly set to be held in mid-July. The exact date, time, and venue are said to be announced together by Washington and Moscow. The meeting is most likely to be held in a third country and Finland might be the prospective location. The complete details will be out by Thursday evening.
After Russia’s interference in the US’ 2016 elections, the relationship between the two countries was defied. With this meeting, the internal friction between the two countries might mitigate. Russia might aim to seek deliverance from economic sanctions charged on the Kremlin by the US and other European countries.
The meeting will be important because of the international prominence of the two countries. Expectations from this summit are kept low as this could just be a public relations event between the two countries.
The topics that would be discussed in this summit are unknown, but Russia’s support to the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has always angered Trump and his NATO partners. This could be a potential topic that could be talked about in the summit.
Trump projected his interest in improving the relationship with Russia by congratulating Putin for his election victory in March even after his advisers stopped him from doing so. Though the Kremlin officials want the two leaders to discuss matters related to Syria, Ukraine, North Korea, and Nuclear negotiations, they think that it would be very difficult to even crack a minimal deal in these matters.
Trump-Putin summit would be the first formal meeting of the two leaders. Polished statements are expected from both the sides; expectations are kept low and it is hoped that something positive will come out of the meeting.
