Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that there are no plans for a meeting of Russian and US presidents, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, in the next couple of months.
"So far, there are no specific plans to hold a meeting between the presidents of Russia and the United States in the next couple of months," RIA Novosti cited him as saying.
"Presidents Putin and Trump held a telephone conversation a few days ago, it was a good talk, they discussed the upcoming contacts between them, and the G-20 summit in Hamburg in July was mentioned as the nearest opportunity," the minister noted.
Earlier the press secretary of the Russian president Dmitry Peskov said that concrete parameters of a meeting between Putin and Trump are not being discussed at present.
The press service of the Kremlin said that Putin and Trump agreed to intensify the dialogue between the foreign ministers of both countries, and also spoke in favor of organizing a personal meeting.
A senior research fellow at the European Research Centre of the International Relations Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vladimir Olenchenko, speaking to Vestnik Kavkaza, stressed that the only thing that now prevents preparing for the meeting of the presidents is the reluctance on the part of the US. "We confirmed readiness for such a meeting, and noted that the relations are at the lowest point. But there has been no estimate from the US side," he recalled.
The expert suggested that it is the strategy of Washington: at first they want to improve Russian-US relations to a certain level, and only then to hold a meeting of the presidents. "Maybe they do not feel ready to meet, because Americans are used to put pressure in most cases, now they see that such behavior will not work at talks with Vladimir Putin, and therefore they have been slow to organize personal presidential negotiations," Vladimir Olenchenko explained.
However, such a delay in the meeting between Putin and Trump will restrain the improvement of relations between the countries. "When meetings take place at the level of presidents, they discuss and solve large-scale, fundamental issues. If economy ministries can discuss economic issues, the foreign ministries - only politics, then presidents are able to discuss any topic and eliminate any obstacle," the political scientist noted.
Trump may lower the level of his meeting with Putin during the G20 summit in Hamburg. "Trump is not a professional politician, he is afraid that he might find himself in a weak position, and that's why he delays the issue of holding a meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit. I have the impression that Trump reserves a short version of the meeting, because he does not feel ready to conduct full-fledged talks," Vladimir Olenchenko concluded.
The Director of the Institute of Strategic Planning and Forecasting, Professor Alexander Gusev, in turn, expects that the meeting in Hamburg will take place. "It's no accident that Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived in Moscow on an official visit: of course, it was not the main topic at the talks between Merkel and Putin, but I think they did not overlook the possible meeting of the Russian and US presidents on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Germany. Does not want to meet with Putin in the near future, because he has already outlined the circle of people whom he should meet first: Teresa May, Angela Merkel, Shinzo Abe, Xi Jinping," he noted.
However, this only means that relations between Russia and the United States are at a very low point. "After the inauguration in January, Barack Obama met with Putin in April, George W. Bush met with the Russian president in June. Taking into account the level of relations between the two countries, it is logical for Trump to meet with Putin later. And most likely it will be just communication within the framework of the summit. But it is important for the meeting to be bilateral," Alexander Gusev stressed, adding that postponing the meeting of the presidents makes the revival of the Russian-American dialogue difficult.
"The meeting of the two presidents is the main thing on the agenda, because the first persons always agree first, after which different ministries and departments can interact. While there is no meeting between Putin and Trump, the dialogue itself is being hampered," the political scientist explained.
At the same time, in his estimation, the situation will not become worse without deep negotiations between the presidents. "Since our relations are already at a sufficiently low level, it can't get any worse. Nothing has changed and, most likely, little change will take place," Alexander Gusev concluded.