The Latest: White House says Ukraine referendum not on table
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin (all times local):
12:10 p.m.
The White House says the Trump administration "is not considering supporting" a Vladimir Putin-backed call for a referendum in the eastern Ukraine in the aftermath of President Donald Trump's meeting with the Russian president.
The White House says the 2015 peace deal signed in Minsk does not include any option for referendum, and a referendum in a part of Ukraine that isn't under government control would have no legitimacy.
The U.S. and Russia have been on opposing sides of the conflict in Ukraine, which started after a popular uprising in 2014 against Ukraine's pro-Russian president and Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.
European allies are also expected to oppose a referendum in the Donbass, where pro-Russian separatists hold sway.
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11:20 a.m.
President Donald Trump's next meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin will focus on national security concerns the leaders discussed earlier this week in Finland.
A White House official says Friday that those issues include Russian meddling, nuclear proliferation, North Korea, Iran and Syria. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official wasn't authorized to discuss internal planning on the record. The official says the purpose is to follow up on progress achieved at Monday's summit in Helsinki.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced Thursday that Trump has asked national security adviser John Bolton to invite Putin to Washington in the fall.
Word that another Trump-Putin meeting is being planned came as the White House sought to clean up days of confounding post-summit statements by Trump on Russian election interference.
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12:31 p.m.
President Donald Trump has invited the Russian leader Vladimir Putin to the White House this fall for a second get-together.
And that comes as cleanup from the first meeting in Helsinki has continued with no letup. Trump belatedly decided Putin's "incredible offer" of shared U.S.-Russia investigations was no good after all.
A White House meeting would be a dramatic extension of legitimacy to the Russian leader. He has long been isolated by the West for activities in Ukraine, Syria and beyond and is believed to have interfered in the 2016 presidential election that sent Trump to the presidency. No Russian leader has visited the White House in nearly a decade.