Trump says to meet with Russia's Putin at G20

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that he will meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin at the summit of the Group of 20 (G20) in June.

US President Donald Trump speaks to the press before a meeting with Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban in the Oval Office of the White House on May 13, 2019, in Washington, DC. [Photo: AFP/Brendan Smialowski]

"I will be meeting with President Putin," Trump told reporters at the White House during his meeting with visiting Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

The announcement of their meeting at the G20 summit, which will be held in Osaka, Japan, at the end of June, came as the two countries are still at odds over issues including arms control, Venezuela, Ukraine and Iran.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is expected to meet with Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the Russian city of Sochi on Tuesday, after skipping a stopover in Moscow for meetings with European and NATO officials in Brussels over Iran.

Pompeo will discuss "the full range of bilateral and multilateral challenges" with Putin and Lavrov, said the U.S. State Department last week.

In early May, Trump spoke over phone with Putin for more than an hour, a conversation which Trump touted later in a tweet as "very productive."

Trump canceled a formal meeting with Putin in Buenos Aires in December last year, citing mounting tensions between Russia and Ukraine.