White House Calls Trump "Unplanned" To Meet Putin In The Near Future

President Putin with President Trump at the 2017 APEC Summit. (Wikimedia Commons/You can do it?

JAKARTA - United States President Donald Trump "did not plan" to meet directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the White House said in a statement on Tuesday.

This development follows a phone call between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

"Foreign Minister Rubio and Foreign Minister Lavrov have made productive phone calls. Therefore, additional face-to-face meetings between the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Foreign Affairs are not needed," a White House official said.

"And there is no plan for President Trump to meet with President Putin in the near future," he added.

President Trump last week said he would meet President Putin in the near future to discuss resolving the conflict in Ukraine although there is no definite date yet, after the two held telephone talks.

Hungarian President Viktor Orban is scheduled to host the summit.

Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the White House on Friday. He said the Gaza ceasefire had recently given momentum to hopes for the end of the Russia-Ukraine war in a similar way.

The US president said the meeting was "very interesting" and "arcore" that he had urged Ukrainian leaders to reach an agreement with Putin.

The day before, Trump made a phone call with Putin which he called "very productive".

After a phone call with Putin and a meeting with Zelensky, Trump appears to be changing his position again, calling on both sides to "stop where they are".