If Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) agrees to the meeting proposed by John Bolton (R), it would be the first time the Russian president has visited the White House since the George W. Bush administration. | Maxim Shipenkov/AFP/Getty Images Foreign Policy Bolton says Putin has been invited to visit Washington in early 2019

National security adviser John Bolton said on Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been invited to visit Washington, D.C., early next year.

“We have invited President Putin to Washington after the first of the year for, basically, a full day of consultations,” Bolton said at a news conference in Georgia, according to Fox News. “What the scheduling of that is we don’t quite know yet."


In July, Trump had asked Bolton to extend an invitation following the U.S.-Russia summit between the leaders in Helsinki, during which he publicly sided with with the Russian leader over his own intelligence agencies, by refusing to condemn the Kremlin for interference in the 2016 election.

If Putin agrees to the meeting, it would be the first time the Russian president visited the White House since the George W. Bush administration. Putin visited 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in November 2001 and September 2005.

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The latest plans come after Bolton announced from Moscow on Tuesday that the two leaders would meet on Nov. 11 in Paris on the sidelines of the Armistice centenary, which marked the end of World War I.