U.K. Maintains Ban on Direct Engagement With Russian Officials Despite Trump's G20 Invite

LIVERPOOL, England — Britain’s chief diplomat said Monday that the U.K. will not ditch its ban on directly engaging with Russian officials after Donald Trump invited Vladimir Putin to the G20 meeting in December.

Speaking in The POLITICO Pub at Labour Party conference, Ed Miliband said it is for the U.S. to “make their own decisions” on inviting the Russian president to the summit in Miami later this year — but stressed the U.K. is unlikely to take the same approach next year.

“We’ve had a long-standing policy not to have direct engagement at my level with the Russians since the invasion of Ukraine. We’re not changing that policy,” Miliband said when asked whether the greater engagement with Moscow is a good thing.

Miliband said the decision is in part about showing solidarity with the Ukrainian people, adding: “Different countries make different decisions on these things.”

The U.K. foreign secretary confirmed Prime Minister Andy Burnham will be at the Miami G20 later this year, but declined to “second guess the decisions” about who’s invited.

Elsewhere in his interview, Miliband acknowledged that disagreements with the Trump administration over the future of the Chagos Islands were discussed when Burnham met Trump at the U.N. General Assembly earlier this month.

“It’s pretty clear, as became apparent from that meeting, that the U.S. administration does not at the moment agree with the arrangement,” Miliband said, adding he and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio “talk a lot” about the way forward. Britain has agreed to cede sovereignty of the archipelago, home to the joint U.S.-U.K. Diego Garcia airbase, to Mauritius. A lease arrangement has been worked out to allow continued use of the base, but critics fear a strategic toehold risks falling into the orbit of China.