WASHINGTON _ President Donald Trump rejected Russian leader Vladimir Putin's offer to settle the conflict in eastern Ukraine with a referendum in the disputed region, the White House said Friday.
"The administration is not considering supporting a referendum in the eastern Ukraine," said Garrett Marquis, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council.
Putin told Russian diplomats that he made a proposal to Trump at their summit in Helsinki this week to hold a referendum to help resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine, but agreed not to disclose the plan publicly so the U.S. president could consider it, according to two people who attended Putin's closed-door speech on Thursday.
Putin's proposal would call for a vote conducted under international auspices by the residents of the separatist territories on their status, the people said.
"The Minsk Agreements are the process for resolving the conflict in the Donbas, and these agreements do not include any option for referendum," Marquis said. "Furthermore, to organize a so-called referendum in a part of Ukraine which is not under government control would have no legitimacy."
