The Kremlin has said work is under way between Moscow, Washington and Beijing to organise a trilateral meeting of the Russian, Chinese and US presidents later this month.
“Work is under way on organising such a meeting,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told the Financial Times, according to a report published on Tuesday.
The report, citing people familiar with the situation in Washington, Beijing and Moscow, said officials had been holding serious talks about arranging a meeting on the sidelines of the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in the Chinese city of Shenzhen on November 18-19.
It cited the Chinese foreign ministry as saying Beijing was in contact with the relevant parties regarding a meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, but made no mention of a potential trilateral meeting involving US President Donald Trump.
The report said it remained unclear whether the three sides were discussing the meeting together or whether Beijing was holding separate bilateral talks with Washington and Moscow.
It also cited people familiar with the situation who cautioned that China had not yet decided whether to proceed with the trilateral meeting.
“One person familiar with the talks said Washington and Moscow were pressing China to agree to a meeting. The Chinese foreign ministry last month said it had ‘no information to provide’ about a possible trilateral summit,” the report added.
Last month, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said no party had ruled out a possible meeting between Putin, Trump and Xi on the sidelines of the APEC summit.
Ushakov told reporters after a meeting between Putin and US special envoy Steve Witkoff in St Petersburg on October 21 that the topic of the potential meeting, which he said “garnered such intense global interest”, had been discussed during their negotiations.
Meanwhile, Peskov told reporters during a press briefing on Monday that Putin’s schedule for the APEC summit was still being prepared, adding that there was no specific information yet about a possible trilateral meeting on the sidelines of the event.
