Trump and Putin to meet next month in French capital

Both leaders will meet for the first time after Helsinki meeting

Wednesday, 24th October 2018

The United States President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet for the first time after Helsinki in France during world war one commemoration next month.

John Bolton, US's National Security Advisor after a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow said that a preliminary agreement to hold a November 11 meeting in the French capital had been reached, and that detailed arrangements are underway.

Bolton, speaking to reporters after his talks with Putin, said Trump would like to meet the Russian president in Paris and that precise arrangements were being worked on.

Putin and Trump have met several times on the sidelines of multilateral gatherings, but had their first bilateral summit in the Finnish capital in July.

Afterwards, Trump's Democratic Party opponents, and some members of his own Republican Party, accused him of failing to stand up to Putin, especially over allegations that Russia meddled in the 2016 US presidential elections.

At a post-summit news conference alongside Putin, Trump questioned the findings of US intelligence agencies that Russia had tried to influence the vote.

Bolton was in Moscow to convey US plans to withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty.

Some of the issues Bolton said he had covered during his talks in Moscow will also still be around, not just the INF treaty, but the situation in Syria and, of course, alleged Russian meddling in the US election.

During a 90-minute meeting in the Kremlin with Putin, Bolton was unable to make any breakthrough over Trump's stated desire to leave the INF treaty, a step Moscow has decried as dangerous and many European countries have warned could reignite a Cold War-style arms race.