Kremlin: Hungary ready to host Russia-US talks in Budapest

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban conveyed to Russian President Vladimir Putin his readiness to provide proper conditions for a proposed Moscow-Washington summit in the capital Budapest, the Kremlin said Friday.

A statement after a phone call between the two leaders said that Putin outlined the main content of his Thursday phone conversation with US President Donald Trump.

Putin said that during contacts with US officials, he conveyed plans to discuss an "algorithm for further actions" in the context of Ukraine peace talks, with a view to hold a summit between Russia and the US in the Hungarian capital.

On Thursday, the Russian and US presidents held what Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov described as a "very substantive, yet also extremely frank and confidential" phone conversation that lasted for nearly 2 1/2 hours.

Ushakov said Putin and Trump discussed the possibility of holding another face-to-face meeting, and agreed that representatives from both sides will immediately begin preparing for a summit, with Budapest as a potential venue. The two leaders last met in the US state of Alaska on Aug. 15.

Calling the phone conversation "very productive," Trump said that he and Putin could meet in Hungary within two weeks, after high-level delegations meet next week.

"It could indeed take place within two weeks or a little later. There's a general understanding that there's no need to put anything off," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists in a briefing earlier Friday.