Lavrov: Potential Russia-US summit depends on the US side

(Patria) - Prospects for holding a Russia-United States summit in Budapest will depend on the American side that came up with this initiative, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in an interview with the Hungarian YouTube channel Ultrahang, TASS reported.

“President (US Donald) Trump proposed that President (Russia Vladimir) Putin meet in Budapest. President Putin said, yes, let's move on to preparatory work.”

“So, the initiative exists, and we are decent people. And when we are invited, we say, yes, let's agree on how, where, and when. And then this invitation is cancelled, as President Trump said yesterday at the White House. Later they said that 'cancel' means 'postpone'. It is up to those who initiated the process,” Lavrov continued.

According to Lavrov, he was not personally invited, but he had a “good conversation with (US Secretary of State) Mike Pompeo.”

“The initiative was from the United States side,” he said. “As I said, I heard that the State Department issued a statement saying that the phone call between Pompeo and Lavrov was good and productive. And it was so good that we don't need any meetings for now.”

Putin told reporters on October 23 that the Russian-American summit in Budapest had been postponed rather than canceled. He recalled that the initiative for the meeting in Budapest came from the United States.