MOSCOW — Talks are underway to arrange a second meeting between President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and President Trump on the sidelines of an Asian economic summit meeting next week in Vietnam, the Kremlin said on Friday.
“It is indeed being discussed,” Dmitri S. Peskov, the spokesman for Mr. Putin, said on Friday. “It is hard to overestimate the importance and significance of any contact between the president of Russia and the United States for all international matters.”
The meeting would take place while the two leaders were attending the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation summit meeting in Danang, Vietnam.
Any meeting would come amid continued tensions between the two countries, with Mr. Trump under pressure in Washington for seemingly dragging his feet on implementing new sanctions against Russia over accusations that it meddled in the 2016 American presidential election.
Since their first meeting in Hamburg, Germany, in July, relations have only deteriorated further. After the new sanctions passed Congress, Mr. Putin ordered the United States to cut hundreds of mostly local staffers from its diplomatic missions in Russia. The United States has pressured two Russian-government news organizations to register as foreign agents.
Just this week, there has been a stream of revelations about Russia flooding American social media with propaganda and the first charges brought in an investigation about possible collusion with Russia during the campaign. One campaign foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos, pleaded guiltyto lying to the F.B.I. about trying to organize a meeting with senior Russian officials.
In addition to domestic matters, Washington and Moscow have traded barbed remarks over North Korea, Syria and nuclear arms proliferation.
Mr. Trump confirmed the possibility of a meeting, telling Fox News late Thursday that Mr. Putin could be helpful on North Korea and Syria, and that the two should discuss Ukraine.
Their first encounter, during a summit of Western leaders, fueled speculation about Mr. Trump’s seeming soft spot for his Russian counterpart.
The official meeting lasted over two hours, and Mr. Trump said he had asked Mr. Putin twice about any Russian role in the American presidential election.
Mr. Putin denied involvement, and the two men agreed to move beyond the dispute in the interest of finding common ground on other matters, including a limited cease-fire in Syria.
Later, at dinner, Mr. Trump also strolled over and talked to Mr. Putin at length with no aides present, considered a stunning breach of diplomatic practice.
The Kremlin has placed its hopes for the lifting of damaging economic sanctions on the two men developing good personal chemistry. However, this strategy has so far proved misplaced, as Congress passed legislation not only imposing the sanctions for election meddling but limiting Mr. Trump’s freedom to remove them.
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