National security adviser John Bolton is scheduled to visit Moscow in June as part of the preparations for a potential summit between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Bolton’s spokesman, Garrett Marquis, on Thursday announced the visit of the Russian capital adding that Bolton will be there “to discuss a potential meeting between Presidents Trump and Putin.”
Bolton’s trip will start Monday, his first stops are London and Rome where he will be meeting with government officials before arriving in Moscow on Wednesday.
According to Bloomberg News, the meeting between Trump and Putin is planned to take place either before the July 11 NATO summit in Brussels or after Trump’s visit to the United Kingdom on July 13.
Trump on several occasions has expressed a desire to hold a summit with Putin in the hopes of forming a close personal relationship with the Russian leader and repairing the damaged ties between Washington and Moscow.
Meanwhile, both Democrats and Republicans are criticizing Trump’s goal because of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election that is now under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, and because of Trump’s friendly rhetoric toward Putin in light of the Russian leader’s terrible record on human rights and freedom of the press.
However, Trump regularly defends his stance, saying “no one has been tougher to Russia than Donald Trump.”
“Ideally we want to get along with Russia. Getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. Maybe we will, maybe we won’t,” Trump said in April.
Trump was faced with additional scrutiny when earlier this month he called for Russia to be reinstated in the Group of Seven (G-7), from which it was expelled after the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
“Whether you like it or not, and it may not be politically correct, but we have a world to run,” Trump told reporters ahead of the G-7 summit in Canada. “And in the G-7, which used be the G-8, they threw Russia out. They should let Russia come back in because we should have Russia at the negotiating table.”
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