Dissident leader meeting primates — but outside capital (8)
I believe the answer is:
budapest
'capital' is the definition.
(capital of Hungary)
'dissident leader meeting primates but outside' is the wordplay.
'leader' indicates taking the first letters.
'meeting' says to put letters next to each other.
'primates' becomes 'apes' (ape is a kind of primate).
'outside' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
The first letter of 'dissident' is 'd'.
'd'+'apes'='dapes'
'dapes' going within 'but' is 'BUDAPEST'.
(Other definitions for budapest that I've seen before include "Hungary's capital" , "Ernest Laszlo's birthplace" , "Put beads in the European city" , "city of Europe" , "Hungarian capital" .)