KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would agree to meet Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin in Turkiye on Thursday after US President Donald Trump told him immediately to accept Putin\u2019s proposal of direct talks.<\/p>\n
The Ukrainian leader had responded guardedly earlier on Sunday after the Russian president, in a night-time televised statement that coincided with prime time in the US, proposed that Ukraine and Russia hold direct talks in Istanbul next Thursday, May 15.<\/p>\n
It was not clear that Putin had proposed to attend in person, however.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will be waiting for Putin in T\u00fcrkiye on Thursday. Personally. I hope that this time the Russians will not look for excuses,\u201d Zelensky wrote on X.<\/p>\n
Putin\u2019s proposal came hours after major European powers demanded on Saturday in Kyiv that Putin agree to an unconditional 30-day ceasefire or face \u201cmassive\u201d new sanctions, a position that Trump\u2019s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg endorsed on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Zelensky too had said Ukraine would be ready for talks with Russia, but only after Moscow agreed to the 30-day ceasefire.<\/p>\n
But Trump, who has the power to continue or sever Washington\u2019s crucial supply of arms to Ukraine, took a different line.<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Putin of Russia doesn\u2019t want to have a Cease Fire Agreement with Ukraine, but rather wants to meet on Thursday, in Turkiye, to negotiate a possible end to the BLOODBATH. Ukraine should agree to this, IMMEDIATELY,\u201d Trump wrote on Truth Social.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt least they will be able to determine whether or not a deal is possible, and if it is not, European leaders, and the US, will know where everything stands, and can proceed accordingly!\u201c<\/p>\n
Putin sent Russia\u2019s armed forces into Ukraine in February 2022, unleashing a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of soldiers and triggered the gravest confrontation between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.<\/p>\n
With Russian forces grinding forward, the Kremlin chief has offered few, if any, concessions so far.<\/p>\n
In his overnight address, he proposed what he said would be \u201cdirect negotiations without any preconditions.\u201d<\/p>\n
But almost immediately, senior Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters the talks must take into account both an abandoned 2022 draft peace deal and the current situation on the ground.<\/p>\n
This language is shorthand for Kyiv agreeing to permanent neutrality in return for a security guarantee and accepting that Russia controls swathes of Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Putin also dismissed what he said was an attempt to lay down \u201cultimatums\u201d in the form of Western European and Ukrainian demands for a ceasefire starting on Monday. His foreign ministry spelled out that talks about the root causes of the conflict must precede discussions of a ceasefire.<\/p>\n
Trump, who says he wants to be remembered as a peacemaker and has repeatedly promised to end the war, earlier responded to Putin\u2019s address by saying that this could be \u201cA potentially great day for Russia and Ukraine!.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would agree to meet Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin in Turkiye on Thursday after US President Donald Trump told him immediately to accept Putin\u2019s proposal of direct talks. The Ukrainian leader had responded guardedly earlier on Sunday after the Russian president, in a night-time televised statement that coincided with …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":78062,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80876","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\/80876","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=80876"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80890,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80876\/revisions\/80890"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}