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Putin to meet with May in Osaka June 28 after conversation with Trump

Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said that "some tangible issues have piled up in our relations with Britain"
British Prime Minister Theresa May Dominic Lipinski/PA via AP
British Prime Minister Theresa May
© Dominic Lipinski/PA via AP

MOSCOW, June 26. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold a meeting with British Prime Minister Theresa May in Osaka in the evening of June 28. Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov told the media the meeting was scheduled for 17:00 local time (11:00 Moscow time). Three hours before that Putin will have a conversation with US President Donald Trump.

"An agreement has been reached through corresponding channels on holding this meeting [with May]," Ushakov said. "This meeting is important. Some tangible issues have piled up in our relations with Britain."

"If some opportunities for establishing cooperation are found, we will merely welcome this," he added. Putin and May will discuss the current situation in bilateral relations and identify likely steps for normalizing the political dialogue, Ushakov said. According to the Kremlin, bilateral trade in January-April 2019 shrank by 14.7% to $4 billion. Russian export slumped 17% and import, 8.2%.

Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, will hold a separate meeting on the G20 summit’s sidelines and the meeting may last nearly an hour, Ushakov told reporters.

"The meeting with Trump will be approximately at 14:00 local time (08:00 Moscow Time) and the second working meeting of the summit will be at 15:00," Ushakov said. The talks will take place in a room for meetings between the leaders, which has been chosen by the US side, he added.

According to Ushakov, the leaders will outline the agenda of the meeting themselves. "The issues are logical: the general state of bilateral affairs, strategic stability and numerous regional conflicts - Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Venezuela, of course, the Iranian problem and so on," he said.

Putin and Trump will discuss the situation in Syria as a whole and the issues of joint work in the Syrian direction, Ushakov noted.

Moscow has been consistently calling for building bilateral relations in a business-like and constructive way in order to establish joint effective work based on the principles of equality and mutual respect, Ushakov said. He also noted that there are concerns over the US decision to leave the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the uncertainty over the future of the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), which expires in 2021.