US President Trump prepares to meet Putin at G20 — source

WASHINGTON 27 June 2017: The White House does not rule out that the meeting of the presidents of Russia and the United States on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hamburg will happen, although a final decision has not yet been made, a senior administration official told TASS, adding that Donald Trump is already preparing for the meeting.

The summit of the G20 leaders will be held on July 7-8. In the meantime, plans for the meeting between the presidents remain in force. Answering a question whether it is possible to imagine a scenario where there is no such meeting at all, the official said, "You can imagine anything but I would expect the meeting is going to happen."

At the same time, the source said, "I know for a fact that nothing has been scheduled yet," and "nothing has been decided" on the format.

Trump's program of visit to Poland and Germany, including bilateral meetings, would be finalized. "I do not know. There is no way to predict. I would expect that everything in the schedule would be finalized before we leave, and we leave on July 5. However, I simply do not want to give you a hard prediction. I am never completely sure about anything," the source said.

Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists in Moscow on June 26 that the Kremlin was ready for any protocol format of Russian-American top-level talks in Hamburg.