Trump puts G-7 summit proposal to Putin

[MOSCOW] US President Donald Trump on Monday proposed his plan to include Russia in an expanded G-7 summit in a phone call with President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin said.

It said Mr Trump "informed" Mr Putin of his plan to hold a rescheduled G-7 "with possible invitation of the leaders of Russia, Australia, India and South Korea," without making further comment.

The Kremlin called the conversation as a whole "constructive, business-like and substantive."

The US leader on Saturday said he would delay the G-7 summit and hold an expanded event later, possibly in September, calling the current lineup of countries "very outdated."

The meeting was due to take place via video conference in June but Mr Trump said he would delay it and aim to hold the gathering in-person instead.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had told journalists earlier Monday that "we don't know the details of the proposal" and said Putin required "more information which we do not yet have."

GET BT IN YOUR INBOX DAILY

Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox.

Sign UpVIEW ALL

Mr Trump said Saturday to journalists on Air Force One that he had "roughly" broached the topic with leaders of the four other countries.

Russia was thrown out of what was then the G-8 in 2014 after it seized Ukraine's Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, an annexation never recognised by the international community.

The G-7 major advanced countries - Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States - hold annual meetings to discuss international economic coordination.

Mr Trump has previously said he supports returning Russia to the G-7.

On Monday, the Russian leader also congratulated Mr Trump on Saturday's successful launch of the SpaceX spacecraft taking astronauts to the International Space Station, the Kremlin said.

The leaders "confirmed a mutual intention to develop mutually beneficial cooperation in the space sphere," it added.

The Kremlin press service said the call noted "the importance of stepping up Russian-US dialogue in the sphere of strategic stability and confidence-building measures in the military sphere."

Mr Putin also thanked the US for sending ventilators to help coronavirus patients.

AFP