Donald Trump to meet Vladimir Putin at G20 summit for the first time, confirms White House

Washington: US President Donald Trump will have a first face-to-face meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Germany next week on the sidelines of the G-20 leadership summit, the White House said on Thursday.

The agenda of the meeting is still being worked out, officials said, adding that Trump is planning to have bilateral meetings with a host of other world leaders on the sidelines of the G-20 summit. “The President has asked us to work together across all departments and agencies to do, really, three things:  to confront Russia’s destabilising behaviour, whether it’s cyber threats, whether it’s political subversion here in Europe and elsewhere”, US National Security Advisor, Lieutenant General HR McMaster told reporters at a White House news conference.

“The second is to deter Russia. Because nobody wants a major power war, right?, so what is it that we have to put in place to be able to deter conflict. Then the third thing is to foster areas of cooperation”, he said. There are a lot of problems in the world that can be discussed during the meeting. North Korea, for example, is one of them; the fight against transnational terrorist organisations is another, said the US National Security Advisor.

In Germany, he said, Trump would hold bilateral meetings with other world leaders Germany, United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, China, Mexico, Indonesia, and Singapore. There could be more. In G-20, the primary objectives are to promote American prosperity, to protect American interests, and to provide American leadership.

“These three objectives tie together every engagement President Trump has with foreign leaders, whether here in the White House, as you saw with the strengthening of our strategic partnership with India during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit on Monday and we will see on Thursday with the strengthening of our alliance with South Korea during president Moon Jae-in’s visit”, McMaster said.

“Additional objectives for the trip include, first, to strengthen American alliances,” he said.

America First, he stressed, does not mean America alone. Trump has demonstrated a commitment to American alliances because strong alliances further American security and American interests, he added.

These meetings with leaders of other countries are also aimed at developing a common approach to Russia.