Trump says Putin’s attendance at G20 summit could be ‘helpful’
US President Donald Trump has expressed a generally positive view about the possibility of Russian President Vladimir Putin attending the next Group of 20 (G20) summit in Miami this December.
"It would be probably very helpful," Trump said on Friday in response to a reporter's question. He said he had always considered Russia's exclusion from the G8 to be an unwise idea.
Russia is still officially a member of the G20, but Putin last attended a summit in person in 2019. The G20 comprises 19 leading industrial and emerging countries, the European Union and the African Union.
Previously, the Washington Post had reported, citing government officials, that the US government was planning to invite Russia, though no invitation had yet been sent.
Trump, meanwhile, pointed out that an invitation did not necessarily mean that Putin would actually attend.
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov left open the possibility of Putin's attendance. "Perhaps President Putin will travel to Miami as a representative of a G20 member, perhaps he won't, perhaps another representative of Russia will go," Peskov said, according to the state news agency TASS.
Moscow would in any case be adequately represented at the summit, as it attaches great importance to the G20, Peskov said.
Russia's war against Ukraine has put it in conflict with the G20's Western-oriented members.
As a result it has recently put more political energy into the BRICS alliance with Brazil, India, China, South Africa and others.
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