WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump will meet Wednesday with Vladimir Putin’s top diplomat at the White House, officials say, marking the highest level, face-to-face contact with Russia of the American leader’s young presidency. It would also signal that the two countries have improved ties that Trump recently described as being at an “all-time low.”
Trump’s talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will take place after the Russian’s meetings earlier in the day with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
A Russian plan to stabilize Syria after more than six years of civil war is the most urgent foreign policy topic on the agenda. But the meeting will be impossible to separate from the Trump administration’s unfolding political drama in Washington, where FBI and congressional investigations are looking into possible collusion between Trump campaign associates and the Kremlin related to last year’s presidential election. U.S. intelligence agencies have asserted that Moscow meddled in the election to help Trump’s chances of victory.
The stigma of the Russia probes has been impossible for Trump to shake. Trump on Tuesday abruptly fired FBI Director James Comey, ousting the nation’s top law enforcement official in the midst of the bureau’s investigation into Trump’s ties with Russia.
Less than a month into Trump’s presidency, he fired his national security adviser, Michael Flynn, saying Flynn misled senior administration officials about his pre-inauguration talks with Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador in Washington.