President Donald Trump will sit down for a one-on-one meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin for a summit on July 16 in Helsinki, U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman told reporters Thursday.
Trump’s sit down with Putin will be followed by an expanded bilateral meeting with senior staff and a working lunch. The format of the U.S.-Russia summit mirrors the exact same schedule as the previous summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
“You can’t solve problems if you’re not willing to talk about them,” a senior administration official explained to reporters, adding “the fact that we’re having a summit at this level is a deliverable in itself.”
The White House announced the summit after National Security Advisor John Bolton visited Moscow to conduct a pre-meeting with Putin. A senior administration official said the agenda for the meeting would include discussions on how to normalize relations between the U.S. and Russia, Russian occupation of Ukraine, and the Syrian civil war.