indo-asian news service
Washington, July 19: US President Donald Trump held a second, previously undisclosed meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin July 7 during the G-20 summit in Hamburg, the White House said Tuesday.
“There was a couples-only social dinner at the G-20. Toward the end, the president spoke to Putin at the dinner,” Efe quoted National Security Council spokesman Michael Anton as saying.
“No staff or Cabinet was at the dinner at all, for any of the countries.”
The dinner took place hours after Trump and Putin met formally for more than two hours on the sidelines of the conference in the German city.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov were present for the earlier discussion.
Trump and Putin were seated at opposite ends of the table for the dinner, but the American leader left his spot and sat next to the Russian.
The two presidents spoke for around an hour, accompanied only by Putin’s translator.
Ian Bremmer, president of the US-based Eurasia Group, was the first to disclose the second meeting between Trump and Putin.
In a newsletter to clients, Bremer said he learned of the discussion from two people who were at the dinner. During the initial session in Hamburg, Trump confronted Putin about allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, prompting the Kremlin chief to repeat his previous denials of any interference.
Earlier Tuesday, the eighth person who took part in a June 2016 between now-President Trump’s oldest son and a Russian lawyer said to have damaging information about Hillary Clinton was revealed to be a US-based representative of a Russian real estate firm.
Ike Kaveladze, a naturalised US citizen, is vice president of the Crocus Group, owned by Azerbaijan-born Russia magnate Aras Agalarov, who worked with the Trump Organisation in 2013 to host the Miss Universe pageant in Russia.
