“It is impossible to postpone something on which there has been no agreement,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Monday, according to state news agency RIA Novosti, shortly after CNN reported that the meeting had been postponed.
RIA later published an update, saying that Ryabkov added that the meeting of senior diplomats required further preparation.
“Preparation is necessary, serious preparation. You have heard statements, both from the American side and from ours, that this may take time. Therefore, no precise term has been set at the beginning,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov added during a briefing with journalists.
Ryabkov’s remarks cast a chill on the notion that Putin and Trump, who hopes to use the momentum and credibility of his Middle East peace deal to negotiate an end to the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine, could meet soon.
The proposed summit in Budapest, which Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán billed as “great news for the peace-loving people of the world,” has angered other European capitals, some of which have promised to close their airspace to Putin.
“Europe has no place for war criminals. There is no path across Europe for war criminals to attend events,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys told reporters.
Putin is also currently the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for war crimes, but Budapest has vowed not to enforce it and withdrew from the ICC earlier this year.
This article has been updated.
