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Putin, Trump to Meet in Osaka at 05:00 GMT on Friday - Reports

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - A meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, is scheduled to take place on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka at 02:00 p.m. local time (05:00 GMT) on Friday, media reported, citing a White House spokesman.
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Spokesman Hogan Gidley told reporters travelling with Trump to Japan on Wednesday, as cited by Reuters, that the US president was set to hold nine meetings during his visit to Osaka.

Particularly, Trump will meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at 11:30 a.m. local time on Saturday.

Earlier, White House National Security Adviser John Bolton said that US President Donald Trump is looking forward to meeting with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka.

Last year, Trump called off his planned meeting with Putin at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina, following a naval incident in the Sea of Azov, when three ships from the Ukrainian Navy breached Russia's border, entered Russian territorial waters that were temporarily closed and began moving towards the Kerch Strait. The vessels were detained after failing to respond to a lawful demand to stop. Moscow then condemned the incident as a provocation on Kiev's part, aimed at creating a pretext to introduce martial law in Ukraine, boosting then-President Petro Poroshenko's ratings and imposing new sanctions on Russia.

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