The US president also
confirmed, that the G7 leaders had discussed Russia’s possible return to the
club of the world’s leading industrialized nations.
BIARRITZ /France/,
August 25. /TASS/. US President Donald Trump said that Russian President
Vladimir Putin might attend the next G7 summit in the United States in 2020,
the news agency Bloomberg reported on Sunday.
The US president made
this statement ahead of his meeting with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on the
sidelines of the G7 summit that is running in the French resort city of
Biarritz, the news agency said.
According to
Bloomberg, Trump said it is "certainly possible" that Putin is
invited to the next G7 summit.
Meanwhile, the news
agency Reuters reported that the US president confirmed the media reports that
the G7 leaders had discussed Russia’s possible return to the club of the
world’s leading industrialized nations. Trump noted, however, he did not know
whether Russia would finally return to the Group of Seven nations.
Returning to G8
format?
US President Trump
told reporters on Tuesday that "it’s much more appropriate to have Russia
in" [the G8]. According to a senior US administration official cited by
CNN, Trump and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron held a telephone
conversation on Tuesday and agreed that the Russian president should be invited
to the G7 summit in 2020. According to CNN, Trump planned to broach the topic
at the G7 summit in Biarritz, France, on August 24-26.
Kremlin Spokesman
Dmitry Peskov earlier told journalists that the return to the G8 format was not
a goal in itself for Russia since it was more efficient to deal with issues
within the G20 format of the world’s leading industrialized and emerging
economies. As Peskov noted, Russian President Putin has said on many occasions
that Russia is not refusing to communicate with other countries in any formats.
The G7 is a group of
industrialized nations that includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the
United Kingdom and the United States. The group was renamed the G8 in 1997 when
Russia joined the club. However, following the 2014 events in Ukraine that
created a crisis in relations between Russia and the West, the group’s western
members decided to get back to the G7 format.
Source: ITAR-TASS
25-08-2019
