U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is not planning to hold talks with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on the sidelines of the Group of 20 foreign ministers meeting in Italy next week, a senior State Department official said Friday.
"I can say there is no meeting planned between Secretary Blinken and the Chinese foreign minister at the G20 ministerial," Susannah Cooper, director of the department's Office of Monetary Affairs, told a conference call, referring to the G20 gathering scheduled for Tuesday.
The Financial Times recently reported that the United States and China were discussing a possible meeting between Blinken and Wang on the fringes of the G20 meeting, citing three people briefed on the talks.