Preparations for Trump-Putin summit 'continue': Hungarian PM Orban

Budapest, Oct 23 (IANS) Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said that preparations for a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin "continue".

"Preparations for peace summit continue. The date is uncertain. When the time is right, we will make it happen," Orban wrote on Wednesday in a Facebook post.

Preparations for a possible meeting in Hungary's capital Budapest were put on hold following what was described as a "constructive but inconclusive" phone conversation between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov earlier this week, US media reported.

Following a phone conversation with Putin last week, Trump said he was ready to meet the Russian leader soon to seek a breakthrough in efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war, Xinhua news agency reported.

However, the US President said on Tuesday that his planned meeting with Putin had been shelved because he did not want to "waste" the meeting.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the timing of a possible summit remains undecided, stressing that "serious preparation" would be required before any meeting could take place.

Despite the delay, Russia's special envoy for investment and economic cooperation, Kirill Dmitriev, said late Tuesday on his X account that "preparations continue" for a future summit, adding that the meeting had not been cancelled.

The summit delay followed Trump's meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House on Friday, where he ruled out a trilateral summit with Russia and Ukraine, citing deep tensions between Moscow and Kyiv.

Trump and Putin met in the US state of Alaska in August, but no deal was reached, and ceasefire negotiations remain deadlocked.

On October 16, Trump started a reboot of the attempts to end the “inglorious” Russia-Ukraine war and announced that he would meet with Putin.

Trump talked with Putin and said on Truth Social, “I believe great progress was made with today’s telephone conversation.”

He said he will discuss with Zelensky his talk with Putin.

Kremlin Spokesman Peskov confirmed the talk.

--IANS

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