Trump eager for big meeting with Putin

WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump is eager to meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin with full diplomatic bells and whistles when the two are in Germany for a multinational summit next month. But the idea is exposing deep divisions within the administration on the best way to approach Moscow in the midst of an ongoing investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the US elections last year.

Many administration officials believe the United States needs to maintain its distance from Russia at such a sensitive time and interact only with great caution.

But Trump and some others within his administration have been pressing for a full bilateral meeting. He's calling for media access and all the typical protocol associated with such sessions, even as officials within the State Department and National Security Council urge more restraint, according to a current and a former administration official.

Some advisers have recommended that the president instead do either a quick, informal "pull-aside" on the sidelines of the summit, or that the US and Russian delegations hold "strategic stability talks", which typically don't involve the presidents. The officials spoke anonymously to discuss private policy discussions.

The contrasting views underscored differing views within the administration on overall Russia policy, and Trump's eagerness to develop a working relationship with Russia despite the ongoing investigations.

There are potential benefits to a meeting with Putin. A face-to-face meeting can humanize the two sides and often removes some of the intrigue involved in impersonal, telephone communication. Trump the ultimate dealmaker has repeatedly suggested that he can replace the Obama-era damage in the US-Russia relationship with a partnership, particularly on issues like the Syria conflict.

There are big risks, though. Trump is known to veer off-script, creating the possibility for a high-stakes diplomatic blunder. In a brief Oval Office meeting with top Russian diplomats last month, Trump revealed highly classified information about an Islamic State group threat to airlines that was relayed to him by Israel, according to a senior administration official. The White House defended the disclosures as "wholly appropriate".

The White House said no final decision has been made about whether a meeting will take place. It did not respond to questions about the opposing views within the administration.

Bilateral meetings are common during summits like the G20, where many world leaders and their advisers are gathered in one place. The meetings are typically highly choreographed affairs, with everything from the way the two leaders shake hands to the looks that they exchange and the actual words spoken offering glimpses into the state of affairs.

The last US-Russia bilateral meeting was a 2015 encounter between Putin and president Barack Obama that began with an awkward handshake and ended with progress on the brutal civil war in Syria.

Associated Press