Trump meeting with Putin expected to take place Friday: report

President Trump’s anticipated meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit will likely take place Friday, a Kremlin spokesman said, according to ABC News.

The Kremlin has said that the “likelihood is great” that Trump will sit down with his Russian counterpart, although the specific details of such a meeting are still being worked out.

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Trump told reporters last week that he would likely meet with Putin at the conference. Friday’s expected meeting is not on the president’s public schedule, ABC News noted.

“I think it’s expected we’ll meet with Putin, yeah,” Trump told reporters while departing for the 13-day trip to Asia last week.

The trip is Trump’s longest foreign trip so far as president and includes stops in Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.

“It is obvious that it will be a good opportunity to exchange opinions on the most vital issues, both international and bilateral,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said of the two leaders’ expected meeting.

Trump and Putin previously met twice at the G-20 summit in Germany in July. During the first meeting, Trump confronted Putin about accusations that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, a charge Putin has denied.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters that Trump was eager to move on from this point of “intractable disagreement.”

“The presidents rightly focused on how do we move forward from what may be simply an intractable disagreement at this point,” Tillerson said.