There are “no plans” for US President Donald Trump to meet Russia’s Vladimir Putin “in the immediate future”, a White House official has stated.
Last Thursday Trump said he and the Russian president would hold talks in Budapest within two weeks to discuss the war in Ukraine.
A preparatory meeting between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov was due to be held this week – but the White House said the two had had a “productive” call and that a meeting was no longer “necessary”.
The White House did not share any more details on why the talks had been put on hold.
On Monday Trump embraced the idea of freezing the Ukrainian conflict on the current front line.
“Let it be cut the way it is,” he said on Monday, referring to the contested region of the Donbas in eastern Ukraine.
Russia has repeatedly pushed back against freezing the current line of contact.
Moscow was only interested in “long-term, sustainable peace”, Lavrov said on Tuesday, implying that freezing the front line would only amount to a temporary ceasefire.
