Next week President Donald trump plans to hold talks with Vladimir Putin, seeking to improve relations with the Russian leader, despite numerous investigations into alleged links of his assistants with the Kremlin.
On Thursday, the national security adviser Herbert McMaster (H. R. McMaster) confirmed that the meeting will be held in Hamburg at the annual summit of “Big twenty”. This will be the first meeting between trump and Putin also held amid intense scrutiny of their relationship. After the arrival of the trump to power, they double-talked on the phone.
It is unclear what can be said of trump Putin in a period of such acute tension between Washington and Moscow, caused by Russia’s intervention in the elections of 2016 and its military presence in Ukraine and Syria.
But many experts on national security and militant hawks in the administration trump is concerned that the President, who has long been talking about the prospects of friendship with Putin very much wants to please his strong-willed Russian partner.
Representatives of the administration trump condemn Putin’s actions on some issues, starting with the suppression of internal dissent to a cyber-intrusion in the voting system of the United States; however, the White house on Thursday hinted that trump has no specific plan for a meeting with Putin, who is well-trained former KGB agent.
“No specific agenda. The President will be speaking about what you want,” said McMaster reporters.
The white house did not elaborate on exactly how the conversation will take place. However, the Director of the National economic Council Gary Con (Gary Cohn) told reporters at a briefing in the White house that trump will be the official “sit” bilateral meetings with leaders of major countries in twenty countries, including with the President of Russia.
Kon added that the official agenda in advance will not be consistent.
Experts on Russian-American relations say that it can create an imbalance when trump arrives for a meeting with the Russian leader, who has long been fixated on the rivalry between the two countries.
“Putin arrives for a meeting with a clear plan. At such meetings he always comes well prepared,” said Thomas Graham (Thomas Graham), working as managing Director of the consulting firm Kissinger Associates, and in the days of George Bush, held the position of it assistant for Russian Affairs.
Chief Graham, former Secretary of state and national security adviser Henry Kissinger, who many times performed the role of a mediator between American presidents and world leaders, met Thursday with Putin in Moscow.
The conversation with Putin will be the measure of a strong desire trump to make friends with the Russian President, even though it will cause a storm in the media, which will point to numerous investigations of the relationships between assistants trump and the Kremlin. (Trump and White house deny that Russia had an impact on his campaign staff in 2016.)
Trump will be difficult to avoid contact with Putin at the summit of world leaders, but some American officials believe that he needs to keep his meeting with the Russian informal impromptu conversation, which is the language of diplomacy is called “take a side”.
“Trump several months talking about the meeting with Putin. The people in the administration have doubts,” said Graham.
They say that trump’s aides from the White house wary of any encounters with the Kremlin’s representatives because of the confusion that arose last month after a visit to the Oval office of the Russian Minister of foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, who became a key figure in the investigation of relationships trump and Russia. The white house was not planning to publish photos of this visit and was surprised when the state news Agency showed images of the official Russian photographer, which he made during a meeting with Russian trump. They are seen as trump is laughing along with Laurel and Kislyak, and this happens the day after the firing of the FBI Director James Komi.
But trump does not lose presence of mind, seeking, as he himself says, to a useful partnership with Russia in the fight against Islamic terrorism.
“In my opinion, the President remains determined to improve relations with Russia. He is convinced of the need to improve,” said Russian-born President of the Washington-based Center for the national interest (Center for the National Interest) Dimitri Simes (Dmitri Simes).
Experts believe that Putin is still full of desire to improve relations with the United States, although Russia has in recent weeks sharply criticized Washington for hysteria, as she says, about the documented interference of Moscow in the 2016 elections.
According to Simes and other professionals, contacts between the two leaders is unlikely to lead to political breakthroughs, especially due to the fact that trump has not yet developed a clear policy approaches to Russia.
“Trump doesn’t occupy a certain position and can not say to his assistants: “That’s our policy, and that’s what you have to do,” says symes. — And in the absence of such specific facilities from the President of the administration of difficult to formulate consistent and coherent approach”.
On Thursday, McMaster said that trump has instructed his national security team “to counteract the destabilizing behavior of Russia” in the Balkans and in other places in order to “prevent conflicts and promote cooperation.” But the details he did not elaborate, limited to a few comments on topical issues, such as the Russian annexation of Crimea and support for the Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad, which trump warned this week about the inadmissibility, he said, planned to strike with chemical weapons on innocent civilians.
