Sergei Lavrov: Maybe Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin had more 'secret' meetings

President Donald Trump may have had yet more undisclosed meetings with Vladimir Putin, the Russian foreign minister has said – but he mocked the US for their obsession with the encounters.

Sergei Lavrov, the wily, wise-cracking veteran politician, laughed when asked by NBC News whether there had been more than the three meetings now known about at the G20 in Germany, earlier this month.

Mr Trump and Mr Putin held a bilateral session in Hamburg, which was widely reported. They also met for the leaders’ photo.

But on Tuesday it emerged that Mr Trump had another hour-long discussion with Mr Putin which was not disclosed by the White House, and at which Mr Trump relied on Mr Putin’s translator. Eyebrows were raised at the absence of American officials during the discussion.

On Friday Mr Lavrov said they may have met again – although he joked about the possibility. 

“They might have met even much more than just three times,” he said.

"Maybe they went to the toilet together.”

Asked whether the two presidents had other conversations or met in the corridors of the G-20 meeting, Mr Lavrov used the analogy of children mingling at a playschool.

“When you are bought by your parents to a kindergarten do you mix with the people who are waiting in the same room to start going to a classroom?” he asked.

"I remember when I was in that position I did spend five or ten minutes in the kindergarten before they brought us to the classroom.”

Mr Lavrov, echoing the White House, downplayed Tuesday’s revelations about the undisclosed conversation.

“After the dinner was over - I was not there - President Trump apparently went to pick up his wife and spent some minutes with President Putin.

“So what?”

The White House is yet to respond to Mr Lavrov's comments.

American media critical of Mr Trump reacted with horror to the news of the undisclosed dinner conversation, with Rachel Maddow, MSNBC anchor, describing an audible tsunami of shock reverberating around her office as the news broke.

But Mr Trump’s defenders have dismissed the news as irrelevant, saying that it is common for world leaders to cross paths informally.

Mr Trump himself said the conversation – which surprised other world leaders at the table - was mainly “pleasantries”.

“So the meal was going, and toward dessert I went down just to say hello to Melania, and while I was there I said hello to Putin,” he told The New York Times. 

“Really, pleasantries more than anything else. It was not a long conversation, but it was, you know, could be 15 minutes. 

“Just talked about — things. 

“Actually, it was very interesting, we talked about adoption.”