White House Confirms: Putin, Trump to Meet in Finland Capital
28 Jun 2018

The White House announced Thursday that President Donald Trump will meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, on July 12. The announcement follows a meeting between Putin and Trump’s National Security Advisor, John Bolton, in Moscow this week.

The sparse White House announcement stated only that Trump and Putin “will discuss relations between the United States and Russia and a range of national security issues.”

The Kremlin announced the meeting at the same time, adding little detail. According to Russia, the two will discuss the “current state of U.S.-Russia ties” and “relevant international issues.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the bilateral relationship as “sad” in remarks to reporters on Tuesday, before Bolton’s planned discussions with Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Trump is scheduled to travel to Europe on July 11 for a summit of NATO member countries in Belgium, and will likely travel to Finland from either there or the United Kingdom, where he is also scheduled to visit – as reports before the official confirmation of the Trump-Putin summit occurred on Thursday.

While Trump and Putin have met in person twice and exchanged several phone calls, this meeting will be the first summit dedicated specifically to the two meeting and exchanging ideas. The men have met at the sidelines of larger events, like the G-20 summit, but not planned explicitly to meet.

Finland was one of two locations reported as likely hosts for the Trump-Putin summit in the past month. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) named Austria as the other likely candidate, and local reports within the Austrian capital, Vienna, claimed that American and Russian officials were scoping out the city. Finland ultimately won out as the preferred neutral territory.

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http://www.breitbart.com/national-securi...eeting-finland/