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At the summit of President Donald Trump in Helsinki with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the two leaders made controversial statements leading to accusations of treason.
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US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at their meeting in Helsinki in July.(Photo: Alexander Zemlianichenko, AP)

WASHINGTON – The Trump administration has invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to Washington in early 2019.

The invitation was announced Friday by National Security Advisor John Bolton at a news conference in Tbilisi, Georgia, just days after meeting Putin and other Kremlin officials in Moscow for discuss the withdrawal of the United States from a nuclear war treaty dating back to the Cold War.

"We invited President Putin to Washington after the beginning of the year for a full day of consultations," said Mr. Bolton. "What is the timing of this work, we do not know it yet."

It is unclear whether Putin accepted the invitation.

The meeting in Washington was discussed after the controversial summit of President Donald Trump with Putin in Helsinki. The idea was suspended due to the investigation of a special advocate on the interference of Russia in the election of 2016 and a possible obstruction of the justice by the president.

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Trump's performance and comments at the summit were sharply criticized, including by members of the president's own party. Many said Trump had appeared to side with Putin's denial of US intelligence officials' findings that Russia had been ingested in the 2016 election for the benefit of the US. Trump.

More: The White House announced that Russian President Vladimir Putin would visit Washington in the fall

More: Donald Trump says he will likely meet Vladimir Putin in Paris

This would be Putin's first visit to the United States since 2015, when he met with President Barack Obama. It is not clear if Trump would visit Putin at the White House.

Putin has not been to the White House since George W. Bush was president.

Before the invitation to Washington, Putin and Trump will travel to Paris next month for a ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War.

Trump said on Tuesday that he would meet "possibly" Putin during his visit.

"We can – this is currently being discussed," the president told reporters. "I think we'll probably do it."

The pair is likely to discuss Trump's recent decision to remove the United States from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty of 1987, known as INF.

Trump said that Russia was not respecting the treaty and that the United States needed to strengthen its nuclear arsenal to face the threats of Russians and Chinese. Russia, meanwhile, claimed that she was complying with the agreement.

Contributor: David Jackson

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