Russian president Vladimir Putin said Friday that he has already invited President Trump to Moscow for a second meeting if the “appropriate conditions” are met.
“We are ready for such meetings. We are ready to invite President Trump to Moscow. He has this invitation already and I told him about it,” Putin said at the BRIC summit in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Asked about Putin’s remarks, the White House left the door open to such a meeting despite implying that the U.S. president has not received a formal invitation from the Kremlin.
“President Trump looks forward to having President Putin to Washington after the first of the year, and he is open to visiting Moscow upon receiving a formal invitation,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement Friday morning.
Trump has invited Putin to Washington next year, following their first official summit earlier this month in Helsinki, Finland. That meeting sparked national backlash when Trump, at a joint press conference with Putin following its conclusion, refused to endorse the U.S. intelligence community’s findings that Russia attempted to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.
“The President believes that the next bilateral meeting with President Putin should take place after the Russia witch hunt is over, so we’ve agreed that it will be after the first of the year,” White House national-security adviser John Bolton said Wednesday.
“Despite the difficulties, in this particular case, difficulties linked to the internal political situation in the United States, life goes on and our contacts continue,” Putin said of the controversy over Trump’s Helsinki performance. Trump’s “great virtue is that he always wants to keep his promises to his voters,” he added.
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