Trump, Xi and Putin in historic summit

All parties have now confirmed that the presidents of China, the United States and Russia will meet for a tripartite meeting on 19 November in connection with the Apec meeting in Shenzhen, China. It is the first time that Xi Jinping, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have met together.

21 countries are participating in Apec, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum, which this year is being held in China.

The world's richest man Elon Musk is expected to accompany Trump on the trip, but he will not participate in the tripartite meeting, a White House source told Reuters.

During the meeting, the presidents are expected to discuss the war in Iran that the United States, together with Israel, started in February this year. China is a major importer of Iranian oil, while Russian-Iranian cooperation has deepened following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

China and Russia have also forged closer ties since the war in Ukraine began, but the major powers are not expected to discuss Ukraine during the meeting, the BBC reports.

However, the issue of nuclear weapons will be discussed. According to a BBC White House source, it is Trump who wants to discuss a disarmament agreement.

Russia and the United States' New Start agreement on nuclear arms control, negotiated when Barack Obama was president, expired in February of this year, and no new deal has been negotiated since.

This means that the world's two largest weapons arsenals have been without major restrictions for nine months, which they have not done so far in the 21st century.

The UN has repeatedly called on Russia and the US to immediately agree on a new framework. However, Trump has previously insisted that China should also enter into a new and "better" agreement, as the American president calls it.

"Instead of extending New Start (a poorly negotiated agreement on the part of the United States that has also been flagrantly violated time and time again), we should let our nuclear weapons experts work out a new, improved and modernized agreement that can apply well into the future," Trump wrote on Truth Social in February.

However, according to the BBC, American analysts have estimated that such an agreement would take several years to negotiate.

Neither China nor Russia has so far stated what will be discussed during the tripartite meeting.