MOSCOW (AFP) ― Russia’s newly sworn-in President Vladimir Putin will make what could be his first foreign trip to China next month after deciding to skip the G8 summit in the U.S., a diplomatic source said on Friday.
Putin’s June 5-7 visit will include talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao and attendance at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, the source told Russian news agencies.
Putin, sworn in for a third term as president on Monday after spending the past four years as premier, had earlier informed Obama he was turning down an invitation to visit Camp David for the G8 summit next week.
The U.S. visit would have included ice-breaking talks with Obama, but the Kremlin said Putin would be busy putting the finishing touches on his new government in Moscow.
The Kremlin has not announced any foreign engagements for Putin before the China visit is scheduled, meaning that Beijing could in a move of great symbolism be his first foreign destination for the third presidential term.
Putin was in the resort town of Sochi on Friday meeting the leader of Georgia’s separatist region of Abkhazia.
U.S. officials downplayed the impact of Putin’s decision, arguing that they understood the explanation and did not view it as a diplomatic snub.
Putin had fought frequently with the United States during his first two terms as president and President Barack Obama in 2009 said he “has one foot in the old ways” of doing business.
But he has also sought to develop Russia’s at-times uneasy relations with China, paying three formal visits there as president between 2000 and 2008.
In his meeting last month with China’s likely next premier Li Keqiang, Putin praised the ties between two countries, calling them “close friends.”
The June summit will be “an important step in further development of the bilateral strategic partnership and comprehensive cooperation,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said during a visit to Beijing this week.
