WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said on Tuesday his plan for a swift meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin was on hold because he did not want it to be a “waste of time.” It was the latest twist in Trump’s stop-and-go effort to resolve the war in Ukraine.

The decision to hold off on the meeting in Budapest, Hungary, which Trump had announced last week, was made following a call on Monday between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

“I don’t want to have a wasted meeting,” Trump said. “I don’t want to have a waste of time — so we’ll see what happens.”