US formally invites Putin

The White House has formally invited President Vladimir Putin to Washington, US National Security Advisor John Bolton said yesterday, returning to an idea that was put on hold in July amid anger in the US over the prospect of such a summit.

President Donald Trump held a summit with Putin in Helsinki, the Finnish capital, and then issued Putin an invitation to visit Washington in the autumn. But that was postponed after Trump was accused of cozying up to the Kremlin.

"We have invited President Putin to Washington," Bolton said at a news conference during a visit to ex-Soviet Georgia, days after meeting Putin and senior security officials in Moscow.

It was not immediately clear if Putin had accepted the invitation, which is for next year.

Bolton, in a separate interview with Reuters, strongly criticised Russian foreign policy, saying Moscow's behaviour on the world stage was one of the reasons Washington had imposed sanctions on Russia and was now considering imposing more.

"It will be helpful if they (the Russians) stop interfering in our election ... get out of Crimea and the Donbass in Ukraine ... stop using illegal chemical weapons to conduct assassination attempts against Russian exiles in the West, and if they would be less intrusive in the Middle East," he said.

Russia denies meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, sending soldiers and equipment to eastern Ukraine, and has rejected Western allegations it was behind the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Britain.