Tuesday, July 3, 2018

Before The Start Of Their Helsinki Summit, Presidents Putin And Trump Will Be Meeting With No Translators Or Aides

U.S. President Donald Trump and Russia's President Vladimir Putin talk during the family photo session at the APEC Summit in Danang, Vietnam November 11, 2017. REUTERS/Jorge Silva/File Photo

CNN: Trump plans one-on-one meeting with Putin

President Donald Trump plans to meet one-on-one with Vladimir Putin at the start of their July 16 summit in Helsinki, Finland, according to a person familiar with the plans, before allowing other aides to join the highly anticipated encounter with the Russian leader.

The meeting will be the first formal summit talks between them. They have met previously on the sidelines of conferences.

Trump has shown an affinity for meeting individually with his counterparts before opening the room to fuller delegations. During his historic summit with Kim Jong Un last month, Trump met for about an hour with just the North Korean dictator, joined only by their translators.

Emerging from the face-to-face, Trump told reporters the discussion was "very, very good."

Read more ....

WNU Editor: The Russians are OK with this type of meeting .... Kremlin: One-on-one meeting with Trump 'absolutely suits' Putin (CNN). In the meantime the top diplomats are talking to each other .... Russia, U.S. discuss preparations for Putin-Trump summit in Helsinki (Reuters)

More News On Reports That Before The Start Of Their Helsinki Summit, Presidents Putin And Trump Will Be Meeting With No Translators Or Aides

Trump planning one-on-one meeting with Putin without aides present: report -- The Hill
Trump, Putin will forego translators, aides for one-on-one meeting at start of Finland summit: Report -- Washington Examiner
Putin, Trump may have one-on-one talk at start of Helsinki summit -- TASS

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

As an aside: you note that Trump met with Kim, alone, except for translator, and yes, look what has come from that thus far

B.Poster said...

Anon,

while we cannot "know" what came of it without access to inside information in real time, from all appearances or at least from my "take" on this, quite a bit has likely come from this. As POTUS tweeted NK is no longer a nuclear threat. I think all of the big issues have been agreed upon. What remains are issues at the margins to be worked out. I think the parties will get this done. I estimate about an 85% chance of success. I'd estimate higher but I've learned never to underestimate the power of our leaders to do stupid.

Recent examples being the hysteria over the so called salute and a suspension of military drills. I can only imagine what kind of message this sends to NK, their allies, and our allies such as SK and China. It indicates that some in positions of power in the US aren't really serious about peace.

Worse case scenario nothing was accomplished by the meeting but nothing was lost. At least on the surface neither side has given up anything of value yet. For example, military drills can easily be resumed. Also, expansion of NK nuclear sites have likely not been halted yet because, as the editor pointed out, it is possible that guidance from the top has not reached the middle yet. Such progress on the side of NK can easily be reversed at this point. So, worse case scenario a meeting with Putin gains nothing and costs nothing. With huge upside potential and no downside risk it seems prudent to me to go ahead with the meeting. This is most impressive that the men have stayed focus in the face of the hysterical opposition to this from many of our leaders.

I tend to agree with the editor in his post above this one. Neither of these men really care what people think about their relations with the other. Like them or not these are serious men focused n serious business.

I would expect some serious areas of contentions on the two sides and some rather sharp areas of disagreement. I'd love to be "a fly on the wall" during these meetings!! It figures to be extremely intense!! With that said I think they are going to get this done. At the end of the day, America MUST have peace and I think Russia wants this as well. I suspect the sides are going to get the "big stuff" accomplished now, work on the side issues, and then after the mid terms when Trump has a bigger majority and more support among Congress get through a final agreement that ends Cold War 2 or at the very least turns down the tensions in a major way.

Time will tell if my predictions are right. They may not be.

B.Poster said...

I meant our allies such as SK and Japan. As for the message the hysterical reaction over the suspension of military drills sent to them, I am sure it was not good as indicates certain prominent people in our country are less than serious about achieving peace preferring instead to score partisan political points while using the US military as pawns in their power struggle. I apologize for the typo.

Now as for China, I suspect team Trump, the Chinese, probably the Russians, North Korea, and South Korea have all reached agreement over the big issues and what remains to be worked out are the issues at the margins. As such, we saw the Japanese stand down their alert. They and their intelligence services are going to be in a better position to know what is actually happening than US pundits who are receiving information from the combination of incompetent boobs and political hacks that make up US "Intelligence" or more specifically the lack thereof.

Time will tell if my assessment of this is right. It may not be. In the absence of more definitive information, whom to trust? Donald Trump, the Japanese, the South Koreans who seem very supportive of the process or US (un)intelligence, the media pundits, and those in leadership who are critical that created the problems that team Trump is feverishly trying to clean up. In my judgment, the former group is more credible but it is more credible but it is a judgment call nonetheless.

Anonymous said...

I know what you mean and the conspiracy theory aficionado in me tends to see it too...but the other guy in me, the voice of reason and just law, would like to see some evidence after 2 years of unlimited research and legal powers by the fbi and then the Mueller team. So far all indictments and guilty pleads have been mostly by poor smocks they squeezed long enough ..of you don't care about it or choose not to see what's goin on and don't want evidence. .fine. .to hell with law. .let's just throw trump into jail and not wait for evidence..because Russia lol
If anyone caused serious damage to the US, I'd argue its Comey. .now I would not be surprised if years later we find out he worked for Russia. Check the movie "Breach " (about a Russian spy in the fbi with a superiority complex -based on a true story. .the biggest counterintelligence scandal and that guy had the very same character flaws as comey.. go watch. .I dare you :)

Anonymous said...

OK if comrade B believes in trump we really might be in trouble O_o

B.Poster said...

"Comrade??" I actually hate Communism. You'd know this if you read my,posts in their entirety.

At,no point did I suggest that I "believe" in Trump. What I suggested is, given the poor track record of tmcritics compared to Trump, I'd trust his judgment over theirs. This could be in error.