"Yalta 2.0:" Putin, Trump, Merkel and Macron discuss future

A working breakfast, hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron in honour of the heads of delegations who have arrived to attend the celebrations to mark 100 years since the end of WWI, took place at the Elysee Palace in Paris yesterday. The event was held in an informal setting, without the presence of journalists, the Kremlin website reported.

Representatives of over 80 countries and heads of the most international organisations were invited to attend the celebratory events in the French capital.

During the lunch, U.S. President Donald Trump discussed a variety of issues with Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel during a lunch, including the INF nuclear treaty, Syria, trade, the situation in Saudi Arabia, sanctions, Afghanistan, China and North Korea, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said.

"They had very good and productive discussions during the two-hour lunch," CNN cited Sanders as saying.

Earlier, the Russian president said that he has had a chance to speak with the U.S. President. The Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov said Putin had no opportunity to speak substantially with Trump during the working breakfast.

Putin's aide Yuri Ushakov earlier said that the French side was "very insistent" that Putin and Trump not hold a summit at commemorations in Paris.

First Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Foreign Affairs, a representative of the legislative body of the Jewish Autonomous Region, Vladimir Dzhabarov, speaking with Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that the new format of negotiations with the participation of Russia, the United States and the leading countries of Europe might be of interest to all parties. "At the same time, it’s not clear how it could look like; it requires a separate structure. The next meeting can be held within the framework of the G20 in Argentina, and a format of holding such meetings twice a year on the G20 sidelines, can be foreseen. In principle, such negotiations will be very useful. I think that the more often the leaders of the leading countries meet, the greater the chance for preserving peace on this planet," he said.

"Even informal meetings of the Big Four leaders for solving operational problems in crisis situations would be very effective. All these countries — France, Germany, and, especially, Russia and the United States — determine the destiny of the world. Therefore, this is very important. It would be justified to add China to them. Most likely, such meetings will be held within the framework of the G20, it’s too early to outline a special format for talks between Moscow, Washington, Berlin and Paris," Vladimir Dzhabarov added.

Director of the Institute of Political Studies Sergei Markov stressed that negotiations in such format, even informal, are unlikely to be held again in the near future. “It was only a short and friendly conversation at breakfast, some confirmation of the readiness for dialogue. The conditions did not suggest that Putin, Trump, Merkel and Macron would look for any solutions on key international issues, because Paris was striving for completely different goals: showing to the increasingly unhappy European Union countries that the EU is saving them from the First World War catastrophe, fixing the return of the demons of nationalism, which led Europe to that catastrophe and declare the need to return the political independence of Europe from the U.S.," he pointed out.

"In this regard, the meeting, especially with the participation of Russia and the United States, would work directly against this main goal of the Paris events in honor of the Armistice of Compiègne's centenary. Other such meetings in the Russia-U.S.-Germany-France format are theoretically possible, but it is very difficult to practically implement them. Although this goal could be brought up exactly by Macron's current goal - he wants to become the leader and creator of a new stage in the development of the European Union, when the EU becomes an independent political force," Sergey Markov concluded.