OMM Newsroom
Russia, China and the United States have not ruled out a possible meeting between their presidents on the sidelines of next month’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said on Wednesday, according to Anadolu Agency.
Ushakov spoke to journalists after Russian President Vladimir Putin met US special envoy Steve Witkoff in St. Petersburg. He said the potential meeting, which had attracted “intense global interest”, was discussed during the talks.
“None of the capitals involved – Moscow, Washington, or Beijing – have dismissed this idea,” Ushakov said. China, which will host the APEC leaders’ summit in Shenzhen on Nov. 18-19, is preparing for a possible meeting and would include it in the programme “should circumstances prove favorable”, he added.
Ushakov said Moscow had put forward several “practical considerations” about what a meeting between Putin and his Chinese and American counterparts could cover, but gave no details.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier on Wednesday that all sides were “hypothetically ready” to hold a trilateral meeting. He said the United States wanted to discuss strategic stability and nuclear disarmament, while China was not interested.
“Using terms like ‘a new Yalta’ and the like are also inaccurate. However, when the leaders of the US, China, and Russia come together, it is, of course, a meeting that will command the attention of the entire world,” Peskov said.
On Monday, “The Wall Street Journal”, citing a former Russian intelligence officer briefed on the matter, reported that Putin had proposed a trilateral meeting during an Oct. 9 phone call with US President Donald Trump. The report said the leaders would discuss the war in Ukraine and seek to end the conflict on terms favourable to Moscow.
Peskov confirmed to the newspaper that discussions about a possible meeting were under way, adding that all three parties “acknowledge the hypothetical possibility of such a meeting taking place”.
“No concrete proposals or agreements – neither regarding the meeting itself nor concerning a potential agenda or the content of such a meeting – were discussed or put forward by anyone,” Peskov told journalists at a briefing that same day.
