Donald Trump claims that he could join Russia-Ukrainian peace conversations in Turkey

Donald Trump said he was open to joining talks between Russia and Ukraine in Turkey on Thursday, as efforts to end the war in Ukraine.

This week, the US President will visit the bay during an official trip to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, and said that he can take a detour for Turkey to take part in planned conversations between two fighting parts.

“I don’t know where I will be on Thursday, I have so many meetings, but I was thinking about flying there” Asset He told journalists in the White House on Monday. “It seems to me that there is a possibility if I think something can do, but we have to do it.”

Trump earlier described the perspective of direct conversations between Moscow and Kijiv as “a potentially great day for Russia and Ukraine!”

The president’s offer came to the interviews when diplomatic efforts to stop War in Ukraine At the weekend he moved equipment with an avalanche of loud meetings in Kiev. According to Ukrainian leaders and analysts and analysts of Ukrainian military leaders and analysts, it also appeared when Russian forces increased the offensive at several key points along the 1000 km front line.

After talks on Saturday in Kiev between the leaders of Germany, Great Britain, France and Poland and the President of Ukraine Volodymyr ZelenskyyThe Allies called Russia to agree to a 30-day unconditional suspension of weapons, starting on Monday or face the “mass” new sanctions.

The position was supported by Keith Kellogg, the envoy of Trump in Ukraine, on Sunday, although Trump himself was more guarded in his public comments on this subject.

Russian President Vladimir Putin replied on Sunday, saying that Moscow and Kijiv should instead conduct direct talks in Istanbul on Thursday, “without any preliminary conditions”. It was not clear whether he was planning to participate in person.

Putin It also seemed to reject the western calls for suspending weapons, describing the demands as a “ultimatum”. In the statement of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it stated that all discussions about the suspension of weapons must be preceded by conversations about the original causes of Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

Trump responded to the Russian offer of conversations, saying that “Ukraine should agree to it.”

“At least they will be able to determine if the contract is possible,” he wrote about the social truth. “If it is not, European leaders and the United States will know where everything is standing and can continue!”

Trump also complained that “he began to doubt that Ukraine concluded a contract with Putin.”

Then Zelenskyy agreed to talks in Istanbul, challenging the Russian leader to appear for the second time when they both met in person.

“I will be in Turkey on Thursday,” said Zelenskyy. “I hope that this time Putin will not look for excuses why he can’t do it. We are ready to talk, end this war.”

The first and only time when Putin and Zelenskyy met in Paris in December 2019, they did not agree the peace plan to end the Kremlin’s armed conflict in the Eastern Donbass region in Ukraine, which began in 2014.

On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not explain whether Putin planned to take part in the proposed meeting. The spokesman added, however, that Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan agreed on Sunday on the phone with Putin to organize a meeting in Istanbul.

Peskov described the initial conditions of a 30-day ceasefire, but as an inadmissible ultimatum.

“This ultimatum language is unacceptable to Russia, it is not suitable. In this way you cannot talk to Russia,” he said.

The Zelenskyy office informed the Financial Times that the Ukrainian president would go to Turkey or Putin will appear. Talking to the Ukrainian media, the chief of the president’s staff, Andriy Yermak, said that Ukraine “will not give Russia a reason to accuse us of disrupting the peace process.”

Türkiye hosted negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian officials in 2022, just a few weeks after the start of Russia’s full invasion of the western neighbor.

But the conversations broke down after it was revealed that Russian forces massaged civilians in Bucha, near Kiev – an act of Zelenskyy condemned as a war crime.

As part of what Erdoğan called his “balanced” approach to Ukraine, Türkiye is one of the few countries that have good relations with both sides, maintaining commercial and diplomatic relations with Moscow, while providing military wrestling to Kiev.

The last pushing of peace appears among the renewed Russian spring offensive, in which his military forces are attacking the strategic cities of Skrovsk, Trettk and Chasiv Yar in the east of Ukraine. Deep State, a Ukrainian analytical group with connections with the Ministry of Defense, said that during the unilateral “suspension of Russian weapons” on May 8-10, the country’s strength began more assault a day than in the same period in April.

He recorded about 155 separate attacks each day within three days.

“There was no arms suspension from the front,” said the group.

Additional reports of John Paul Rathbone in Istanbul