Trump, Xi and Putin plan unprecedented joint meeting on the sidelines of APEC: White House

WASHINGTON, Nov 14, (AP): The leaders of the United States, China and Russia plan to meet Thursday on the sidelines of next week's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in China's tech hub of Shenzhen - an unprecedented gathering of the heads of the world's biggest nuclear powers. While the leaders gathering for joint talks will mark a singular moment, analysts say expectations are low that the talks will lead to major breakthroughs and say they will be heavier in symbolism than substance.

Plans for the three-way summit with Donald Trump, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin were confirmed Friday by the White House. It comes at a complicated moment in relations between the three countries. Trump has warmly embraced Xi after coming to a truce in their short-lived trade war last year and in spite of differences over the US war with Iran and other tensions between the world's foremost economic powers.

Similarly, Trump has sought to build his relationship with Putin, even as the Russian leader has persisted in his nearly 5-year-old war with Ukraine and as Moscow has deepened its military, intelligence and diplomatic partnership with Iran. The US president has insisted that such a meeting would provide an opportunity for the three leaders to discuss the US war with Iran and his goal of reaching a three-way agreement on their nuclear arms stockpiles.

Trump does plan on discussing the Iran war with Xi and Putin, but will steer away from discussing Ukraine, according to a senior U.S. official who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity. The last nuclear arms pact between Russia and the United States expired in February, removing caps on the two largest atomic arsenals for the first time in more than a half-century.

When that treaty - known as New START - expired, Trump rejected a call by Russia to extend the two-country deal for another year and called for "a new, improved and modernized” deal that includes China. The trilateral meeting is intended to serve as the "beginning of hopefully a conversation” on nuclear disarmament "that can be productive going forward,” said the US official, who added that no agreements are expected to be announced.

But Beijing’s arsenal of more than 600 warheads, according to Pentagon estimates, is far smaller than inventories held by the US and Russia, each estimated to have more than 5,000 warheads. With US and Russian arsenals dwarfing its stockpile, China has shown little interest in developing a nuclear pact.