Kremlin says it does not have dates for Putin-Trump summit

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U.S. President Donald Trump and Russias President Vladimir Putin meet in Helsinki, Finland July 16, 2018. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

MOSCOW - The Kremlin said on Tuesday that the timing of a potential summit between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump was unclear and that no dates had been mentioned.

The comments followed a CNN report that a planned preparatory meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had been put on hold.

The session, expected this week, was seen as a key step toward organizing a Trump-Putin summit. But the Kremlin denied that anything had been postponed.

We cannot postpone something that has not been finalised. Neither President Trump nor President Putin have given exact dates. Preparation is needed, serious preparation, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

He added that Moscow currently had no understanding of when a meeting between the two presidents might take place. REUTERS