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President Trump invited his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to the White House when he called last month to congratulate the Kremlin leader on his re-election, the White House said Monday.
Press secretary Sarah Sanders confirmed that Trump and Putin had “discussed a bilateral meeting in the ‘not-too-distant future’ at a number of potential venues, including the White House,” during the March 20 call.
Preparations for the meeting are being discussed and no date has been set.
Trump took heat for congratulating Putin during the call but not raising Russia’s involvement in the nerve-agent poisoning of a former Russian spy on British soil on March 4.
He also did not press Putin on Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election, which special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating.
“Against the backdrop of these events, it’s difficult to discuss the possibility of holding a summit,” Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said at a media briefing in Moscow.
“We want to believe that the discussions (on a proposed summit) will begin,” he said. “We want to hope that … one day, at one time or another, we can arrive at the start of a serious and constructive dialogue.”
It wouldn’t be Putin’s first visit to the White House.
He met with President George W. Bush in September 2005.
Last week, the US joined with Britain and its allies to expel more than 150 Russian diplomats from their countries for the attack on Segei Skripal, 66, and his daughter, Yulia, 33, in Salisbury, England.
Russia responded by ousting 60 diplomats and closing the US Consulate in St. Petersburg.
Trump, in a Twitter post, shrugged off the criticism that he didn’t call Putin on the carpet about the Skripals or interfering in the election.
“I called President Putin of Russia to congratulate him on his election victory (in past, Obama called him also),” he wrote on March 21. “The Fake News Media is crazed because they wanted me to excoriate him. They are wrong! Getting along with Russia (and others) is a good thing, not a bad thing.”
The president went on to say Putin could work with the US in such global hot spots as North Korea, Syria, Iran and in the fight against Islamic State terrorists.
This report originally appeared on NYPost.com.