Italy's Mario Draghi said on Tuesday that Group of 20 (G20) chairman President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, has ruled out Vladimir Putin's attendance at the body's November summit – a statement the Kremlin quickly rejected.

Indonesia holds the rotating presidency of the G20 this year and Western countries have pressured Jokowi to exclude Russia's president from the summit, after announcing in April he had been invited.

"President [Jokowi] rules it out," Draghi told reporters at the end of the two-day G7 summit in Germany, to which Jokowi was invited as a guest, AFP reported. "He was categorical, he [Putin] will not come. What may happen is a remote participation, we'll see," Draghi added.

The Kremlin reacted swiftly, with advisor Yuri Ushakov saying: "Draghi does not decide this."

"We have received the invitation and we have responded positively," Ushakov said, according to Russia's Interfax news agency.

"He [Draghi] has surely forgotten that he is no longer the host" of the G20, as he was last year, Ushakov added.

On Monday, Ushakov said that Russia was interested in participating in the Nov. 15-16 summit to which Putin had been invited to attend in-person.

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