Trump to meet Putin at G20 summit

Washington, May 14 (IANS) US President Donald Trump said that he would meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin at the summit of the Group of 20 (G20) next month."I will be meeting with President Putin," Trump told reporters at the White House during his meeting with visiting Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.The announcement of their meeting at the G20 summit, which will be held in Osaka, Japan, at the end of June, came as the two countries are still at odds over issues including arms control, Venezuela, Ukraine and Iran.US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expected to meet with Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the Russian city of Sochi on Tuesday, after skipping a stopover in Moscow for meetings with European and NATO officials in Brussels over Iran.Pompeo will discuss "the full range of bilateral and multilateral challenges" with Putin and Lavrov, said the US State Department last week.In early May, Trump spoke over phone with Putin for more than an hour, a conversation which Trump touted later in a tweet as "very productive."Trump cancelled a formal meeting with Putin in Buenos Aires in December last year, citing mounting tensions between Russia and Ukraine.
--IANS vin/