Exclusive: Lavrov Previews What Putin and Trump May Be Talking About at the Da Nang Summit
The protocol services of Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump are trying to agree on the time and format of the meeting between the presidents of Russia and the United States. It can also take place on the sidelines of the APEC summit. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told this in an exclusive interview with our channel. The talks are likely to focus on bilateral relations, Syria, North Korea and Ukraine. Our correspondent Pavel Zarubin is reporting from Vietnam on what Moscow and Washington can say each other about all this now.
- Are preparations for the meeting between Putin and Trump under way?
Sergey Lavrov: "Of course, they are".
There are still very few details. But in an interview with Vesti Sergey Lavrov told something.
Sergey Lavrov: "I prefer not to read coffee grounds. Both Putin and Trump will be here in Da Nang at the same event. They already announced they were ready to meet".
Will it be a full-fledged meeting or, so to say, meeting on one's feet?
Sergey Lavrov: "Once again, we hear the statement of Donald Trump himself that he plans to hold a meeting with President Putin. President Putin is ready for it, the Americans know about it. Protocol services are in contact".
For the first time, Putin and Trump personally communicated in July at the G20 summit in Hamburg. And those few statements about specific results of the meeting — and then the presidents agreed to cooperate in the sphere of cyberthreats — very quickly were virtually disavowed by the US. Won't the same thing happen again?
Sergey Lavrov: "President Trump is not allowed to exercise his presidential power. Of course, we can reach agreements but unfortunately, they immediately become an element of internal political struggle political in-fighting to complicate life and work for President Trump".
Today Trump with a poker face is in Beijing. Despite all the sharp contradictions, the Chinese side is extremely hospitable. Xi Jinping is smiling. But the American president seems to notice nothing. He repeatedly and sharply stated that the current economic relations between the US and China are unfair to the benefit of China. But the US itself has done much for this.
One of the key topics at the talks in China is the increasingly heated situation around North Korea. Trump added fuel to the flame. He made a very bellicose speech in South Korea.
Donald Trump, US President: "Now is the time for strength. If you want peace, you must stand strong at all times. The world can't tolerate the menace of a rogue regime that threatens with nuclear devastation. Do not underestimate us. And do not try us. We will defend our common security, our shared prosperity, and our sacred liberty".
Sergey Lavrov: "Exchanging threats and even insults — which was done by both sides — will lead to no good. We need to sit down, to negotiate. I have already quoted the words of the United States Secretary of Defense, Mattis who said in summer that if there was a military conflict there would be a catastrophe that would claim tens of thousands of lives, and the latest estimates even say about millions of lives".
At the APEC summit in Vietnam, everybody talks about the unpredictability of the United States. The overwhelming majority of countries turned out to favor free trade and only Washington, which for decades has imposed it on the whole world, now tucked tail and wants some kind of fair trade.
Every day the APEC summit in Vietnam will take place in the rain. Here, in Da Nang, it's raining around-the-clock. But most importantly, the economic and political climate is sharply corrupted by the US. On the sidelines, is said simply not to understand what it wants. Pavel Zarubin, Andrey Melnikov, Dmitriy Yarmolenko, Julia Vorobyeva for Vesti from Vietnam.