FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

Trump and Putin in Brief Exchange at G20; Putin Says ‘Full-Format Meeting’ Much Needed for Strategic Stability

Dec. 2, 2018 (EIRNS)—“It is unfortunate that we can’t hold a full-format meeting,” Russian President Vladimir Putin told a press conference at the end of the G20 summit, referring to the cancelled meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and himself. “I hope that the meeting takes place eventually when the U.S. side is ready for it.”

“We do not set any preconditions because the issues we need to discuss are very important for us and for the rest of the world,” Putin continued.

“Issues of strategic stability are on top of the agenda, meaning that they are followed by questions of non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. It is unfortunate that we can’t hold a full-format meeting. I think it is very much needed, in connection with issues of strategic stability, especially after the [U.S.] President announced that the United States plans to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces [INF] Treaty.”

Mentioning Syria, Afghanistan, North Korea, and other issues, he declared, “Dialogue on all these topics is needed. We are not the only ones interested in this. It is important for other countries as well, including for the United States.”

Putin also said that he did have a brief exchange with President Trump on the sidelines of the G20 meeting, on the subject of Ukraine and the incident in the Kerch Strait.

“We talked with President Trump, so to speak, ‘on the go’ since everybody talks with each other there [at the summit]. I briefly answered his questions about the incident in the Black Sea. Trump has his own position on these issues, problems. I have my own. We did not change each other’s opinions but at least I informed him about our vision of this incident.... We informed [foreign leaders] about how the situation unfolded. It is hard to counter that,”

Putin told journalists. He said that one of the arguments impossible to counter is the mark in a logbook of one of the detained Ukrainian Navy ships that states the task of covertly entering Russia’s territorial waters and passing through the Kerch Strait.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov likewise told the “Moscow. Kremlin. Putin” broadcast on Rossiya 1 TV channel today that Russia is prepared to resume dialogue with the U.S., on the terms proposed by U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton.

“The U.S. President’s National Security Adviser John Bolton contacted Russian Presidential Aide on Foreign Policy Yury Ushakov and confirmed that they would like to resume and normalize dialogue,”

Lavrov said. “We are ready for this as soon as our colleagues are ready for this.”