WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said Sunday he would likely be meeting with the leaders of Russia and China next week to discuss ending the Iran war.
Trump told reporters he expects to meet with Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir Putin of Russia at an Asia-Pacific summit in Shenzhen, China scheduled for Nov 18-19.
“Well, I’m going to be going to China,” Trump said, “and one of the meetings I think will be with President Putin and President Xi, and that’ll be interesting.”
He added: “We’ll talk a lot of things, including denuclearisation, but we’ll be talking a lot of things. We’re trying to end the war in Iran.”
The Kremlin said Oct 21 that this first of its kind trilateral meeting is “being prepared.”
This followed a Wall Street Journal report that Putin wanted the three-way talks to broker a peace deal in Ukraine that would be favourable to Moscow, which invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Trump is criticised in the United States as having a fondness for authoritarian leaders like those of China and Russia, among others.
Trump’s willingness to meet with Putin is a further show of how the US president has worked to end the international isolation of Russia that was triggered by its invasion.–AFP