MOSCOW, July 13. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump plan traveling to the summit in Helsinki without big delegations, Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters on Friday.
Instead of this, Putin will get assistance from the accompanying experts of various departments who will be prepared to draw up promptly the necessary reference materials or joint Russian-American documents, he said.
"The two sides agreed that, apart from the US Secretary of State and the Russian Foreign Minister, any other ministers won’t attend the talks," Ushakov said. "Present on the Russian side will be Sergey Lavrov, Ushakov and a whole number of experts in attendance."
He made it clear, however, that the experts would be delegated by the Foreign Ministry, as well as from other ministries and departments.
"It’s understandable we’re preparing the necessary materials for negotiations but the way the two presidents will arrange their contact depends only on themselves," Ushakov said. "And we’ll have experts in standby. If need be we’ll be doing everything quickly preparing joint documents if there’s agreement on them."
"We’ve agreed so far the presidents will speak to each other and decide on the objectives they will put forward to the relevant ministries and departments for the coming period and then all of this will be summed up at the talks in the presence of delegations in full force," the aide said. "
"After that the presidents will give assessment to the talks at a joint news conference, in the course of which each of them will make an address to the audience and will answer four questions - two from the Russian side and two from the American side," Ushakov said.
He declined to name the members of the US delegation and confined his answer to saying it would include US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and Trump’s closest advisors at the White House.