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Trump and Putin Choose Helsinki for First Summit Meeting

MOSCOW — President Donald Trump plans to meet President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, on July 16 for one-on-one talks, the White House said Thursday, a politically sensitive meeting that will take place while the special counsel continues to investigate the Trump campaign’s possible ties to Russia.

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By
Andrew E. Kramer
and
Eileen Sullivan, New York Times

MOSCOW — President Donald Trump plans to meet President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, on July 16 for one-on-one talks, the White House said Thursday, a politically sensitive meeting that will take place while the special counsel continues to investigate the Trump campaign’s possible ties to Russia.

It will be the first formal summit meeting for Trump and Putin, who have spoken together twice on the sidelines of annual gatherings of world leaders, and it also comes at a particularly delicate moment, with midterm elections looming in the United States.

“The two leaders will discuss relations between the United States and Russia and a range of national security issues,” the White House said in a statement.

The Helsinki talks, which will come on the heels of a NATO summit meeting in Brussels on July 11 and 12, could exacerbate U.S. relations with European allies even as it eases tensions with Russia.

Trump this week sent his national security adviser, John R. Bolton, to Moscow, where he met on Wednesday with Putin.

Afterward, an aide to Putin, Yuri Ushakov, reiterated Moscow’s denial of trying to influence the United States presidential election in 2016, comments that Trump cited on Thursday in a Twitter post before the announcement of the meeting with Putin.

“Russia continues to say they had nothing to do with Meddling in our Election!” Trump wrote.

The potential for such a high-level meeting has concerned some American allies in Europe, particularly because of recent tensions between the Trump administration and traditional American allies including Canada, France and Germany.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Trump said that it was important to get along with Russia and with other countries.

But a meeting with Putin, with the goal of improving relationships between the United States and Russia, has always appeared to be a priority for Trump.

Early in the presidential campaign, before having secured the Republican nomination, Trump said he thought he and Putin would hit it off.

“I think I’d get along very well with Vladimir Putin,” Trump said in the summer of 2015.

Trump has also said he would consider inviting Putin the White House, which would be the first visit by the Russian leader since 2005.

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