Trump open to trilateral meeting with Xi Jinping and Putin on nuclear arms reductions

US President Donald Trump has expressed willingness to hold a threeway meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss nuclear arms reductions potentially during his planned visit to China next month as Washington seeks to revive armscontrol diplomacy among the worlds three major nuclear powersSpeaking to reporters before departing the White House on Monday Trump indicated that he was open to a proposed trilateral meeting but wanted nuclear weapons and denuclearisation to be central to the discussions rather than Russias continuing war in UkraineI would do it not so much for Ukraine we would have it to talk about denuclearization Trump saidThe Presidents comments followed reports that Putin had proposed a meeting involving the leaders of Russia China and the United States during the AsiaPacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen in NovemberNo formal agreement to hold such a summit has been announced and the three governments have not confirmed a common agenda or timetable for nuclear negotiationsTrump said he was prepared to discuss reducing nuclear weapons with both Moscow and Beijing describing such negotiations as an opportunity to address one of the worlds most serious security challengesThe President has repeatedly expressed interest in a nuclear agreement involving the three countries although their strategic arsenals differ substantially in size and compositionThe United States and Russia possess the worlds largest nuclear stockpiles while China has been expanding its nuclear capabilitiesTrump said China remained behind the two other powers but was increasing its capabilitiesHis latest remarks came days after he said in an October 15 interview that Washington was already discussing denuclearisation with Russia and ChinaThe President acknowledged that reaching an agreement would be difficult particularly because Beijing possesses a smaller arsenal and may be reluctant to accept the same limitations as Washington and MoscowChina has previously opposed proposals for trilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations on the grounds that its arsenal is substantially smaller than those of the United States and RussiaThe Chinese Foreign Ministry reiterated that position last week saying that expecting Beijing to participate in threeway nuclear disarmament talks at the present stage was neither fair nor realisticThe possibility of renewed negotiations comes amid growing uncertainty over international nuclear armscontrol arrangementsThe New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty commonly known as New START expired earlier this year leaving Washington and Moscow without the legally binding strategic nuclear limits established under the agreementThe treaty had limited each country to 1550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads and imposed restrictions on deployed delivery systemsArmscontrol specialists have warned that the absence of a successor agreement could accelerate competition among nuclear powers and weaken transparency over strategic arsenalsDaryl Kimball executive director of the Arms Control Association said on Monday that meaningful negotiations would require detailed proposals and sustained diplomatic engagementRussia has suggested that a meeting involving Trump and Xi could address the conflict while Ukrainian officials have expressed concern about discussions affecting their countrys future without Kyivs participationTrumps remarks indicated that he would prefer to place nuclear arms control at the centre of any threeway meetingThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever