NEW YORK, March 4 : US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he appreciated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky\u2019s willingness to sign a minerals deal with the United States and come to the negotiating table under his leadership to bring a lasting peace closer in Kyiv\u2019s war with Russia.
\nTrump said in an address to the US Congress that Zelensky made the declaration in a letter to him earlier in the day.
\nZelensky posted on X earlier that Ukraine was ready to sign the deal and talk peace and called a contentious Oval Office meeting last week after which it was put on hold \u201cregrettable.\u201d
\nThe Trump administration and Ukraine plan to sign the minerals deal, four people familiar with the situation told Reuters earlier on Tuesday. Trump had told his advisers that he wanted to announce an agreement in his address to Congress, three of the sources said, cautioning that the deal had yet to be signed and the situation could change.
\nTrump\u2019s remarks suggested that progress had been made.
\n\u201cEarlier today, I received an important letter from President Zelensky of Ukraine. The letter reads, \u2018Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer,\u201d Trump said.
\nTrump said Zelensky had said he stood ready to work \u201cunder President Trump\u2019s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts\u201d and that he valued how much America had done to help Ukraine maintain its sovereignty and independence.
\n\u201cRegarding the agreement on minerals and security, Ukraine is ready to sign it at any time that is convenient for you,\u201d Trump quoted Zelensky as saying.
\n\u201cI appreciate that he sent this letter,\u201d Trump said, adding that \u201cSimultaneously, we\u2019ve had serious discussions with Russia and have received strong signals that they are ready for peace.
\nTrump has said the agreement will help secure a peace deal by giving the United States a financial stake in Ukraine\u2019s future. He views it as America\u2019s way of earning back some of the tens of billions of dollars it has given to Ukraine in financial and military aid since Russia invaded three years ago.
\nZelensky was dismissed from the White House after being berated by Trump and his vice president, who said he should thank the US for its support rather than asking for additional aid for Ukraine\u2019s war against Russian in front of the media.
\n\u201cYou\u2019re gambling with World War Three,\u201d Trump said on Friday.<\/p>\n
US officials urged apology
\nUS officials have in recent days spoken to officials in Kyiv about signing the minerals deal despite Friday\u2019s blow-up, and urged Zelensky\u2019s advisers to convince the Ukrainian president to apologize openly to Trump, according to one of the people familiar with the matter.
\n\u201cOur meeting in Washington, at the White House on Friday, did not go the way it was supposed to be,\u201d Zelensky said in his post on X. \u201cUkraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer.\u201d
\nIt was unclear if the deal has changed. The version that was to be signed last week included no explicit security guarantees for Ukraine but gave the US access to revenues from Ukraine\u2019s natural resources. It also envisaged the Ukrainian government contributing 50 percent of future monetization of any state-owned natural resources to a US-Ukraine managed reconstruction investment fund.
\nOn Monday, Trump signaled that his administration remained open to signing the deal, telling reporters in a gaggle that Ukraine \u201cshould be more appreciative.\u201d
\n\u201cThis country has stuck with them through thick and thin,\u201d Trump said. \u201cWe\u2019ve given them much more than Europe, and Europe should have given more than us.\u201d
\nFrance, Britain and possibly other European countries have offered to send peacekeeping troops to Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire but would want support from the US or a \u201cbackstop.\u201d Moscow has rejected proposals for peacekeeping troops.
\nDaniel Fried, a former senior White House official and ambassador to Poland, said the path to getting the minerals deal done has been messy, but it would deliver two solid wins for Trump \u2014 Zelensky\u2019s statement of regret and the agreement of Britain and France to provide security and boots on the ground.
\n\u201cTrump can and should take the win. He\u2019d be able to say that he … got the Europeans to stand up in front of an issue of European security, which they\u2019ve never done before,\u201d said Fried, now a fellow at the Atlantic Council.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEW YORK, March 4 : US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he appreciated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky\u2019s willingness to sign a minerals deal with the United States and come to the negotiating table under his leadership to bring a lasting peace closer in Kyiv\u2019s war with Russia. Trump said in an address to the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":77970,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77959"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77972,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77959\/revisions\/77972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}