WASHINGTON — The White House has said it regretted Russia's decision not to attend a preparatory meeting last week for the 2016 nuclear security summit.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters in a briefing on Tuesday that Russia declined to participate in the meeting but that he was not aware that Moscow planned to boycott the summit itself.
The fourth nuclear security summit is scheduled to be held in Chicago in 2016, returning to the U.S., where the process was launched by U.S. President Barack Obama in 2010.
The summits aim to enhance nuclear security around the world and have involved major powers including China, France, Germany and Britain. The last summit was in The Hague in March, when Russia and the U.S. set aside their differences over Crimea to endorse the meeting's final statement.