“In a couple of weeks from now we will know if we can solve this scary war,” US President Donald Trump said at the start of the historic meeting with European leaders in the White House.
Trump stressed that “he knows that Russian President Vladimir Putin also wants to find a solution” in the Ukraine war. “We have two parts that willingly declare to reach an agreement. I believe it is possible, we will be able to save thousands of lives lost every week, “he added.
At the start of the summit, after the “family photo”, Trump said he spoke with Putin in the morning and would contact him again after the end of the talks in Washington. “We may have a great, tripartite meeting in the future,” he said.
The US president personally thanked all the attendees, describing his “friends” as British Prime Minister Kir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Mertz and “great leader” by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia. Speaking about NATO Secretary -General Mark Rutte, he said he was “doing a great job” while French President Emmanuel Macron “is by the beginning”. Addressing Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb, he said to him, “You’ve tanned, you go, I want such tan, too,” to add that he too does a “great job.” To European Commission President Ursula von der Laien said that “it is a woman who respects the world”, recalling the recently reached trade agreement between the US and the EU.
Referring to the recent Alaska Summit, Trump said that we “made significant steps”, assuring that “Putin is willing to accept security guarantees”. Europe will lift a lot of these guarantees but “we will contribute to security,” he added, noting: “We are here to discuss who will do what.”
“Our goal is to save human lives. We all want a lasting peace, maybe this will happen after today’s meeting. I want a ceasefire because it puts an end to the killings but it is not necessary to have a peacekeeping agreement, “he said, admitting that” initially he thought it was simple to end the war in Ukraine “but eventually the issue proved to be more complex.
“We will get to a solution today, including security issues,” he insisted.
Then the leaders of Ukraine and other countries spoke. Their statements were monopolized by the issue of security guarantees, with Zelenski stressing that “it is important for the US to give a loud message that they are willing to provide security guarantees”. The Ukrainian president, like von der Laen, stressed that the children who have been abducted by Ukraine should be returned and on this occasion Zelenski once again thanked the first lady of the US Melania Trump for dealing with this issue.
German Chancellor Friedrich Mertz called for pressure to put pressure on Russia so that a ceasefire would be stopped until the next, trilateral meeting. For this trilateral meeting, French President Emmanuel Macron said he should follow a multilateral because “when talking about security guarantees we talk about the security of all Europe.
British Prime Minister Kir Starme described today’s “historic” day, commenting that the trilateral is “the absolutely reasonable next step” to be taken while Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni said that this “very important day marks a new phase” because we are “here”. We will discuss very important issues, the first of which are the security guarantees in the standard of Article 5 of NATO and how this will not happen again. “
“Very Positive Step” described a trilateral and Stuby, noting that “in recent weeks there has been more progress than it had been achieved in previous years.”
Source: RES – EIA