“I certainly would invite Putin to the G7 meeting. I think he’s an important factor,” Trump told a White House briefing on Monday answering a question.

Trump also told reporters he was considering plans of holding the G7 summit after the November election. “I’m much more inclined to do it sometime after the election.”

According to Trump, the US has not yet formally invited leaders. “We haven’t sent out invitations. We’re talking to them,” he said, noting that there were plans on inviting countries that aren’t formal members of the G7, TASS reported.

The summit, which was due to be held at Camp David in June, was later postponed until September. Trump earlier announced plans to invite Russia, Australia, India, and South Korea to this meeting.

The G7 is a group of industrialized nations that includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The group held its first meeting in 1975. The G7 was renamed the G8 in 1997 when Russia joined the club. However, following the 2014 events in Ukraine that created a crisis in relations between Russia and the West, the group’s Western members decided to revert to the G7 model.