The US president, Donald Trump, said Friday that he is willing to meet with Vladimir Putin “as soon as we can organize it” and said he understands that the Russian president was not going to Istanbul without him being present
“I would go from here, although I want to see my wonderful grandson,” Trump said in a bilateral event with companies in the United Arab Emirates (EAU) in reference to his daughter Tiffany has just had a child and wants to return to meet him.
“If I was not going, I was guaranteed that Putin was not going to go and it was not. I can understand it, but we are going to get it,” Trump said, that from the beginning he was in favor of facilitating the meeting between the Ukrainian leader, Volodimir Zelenski, and Putin in Istanbul this Friday.
Finally, Putin, who initially proposed the meeting, did not appear in Istanbul to lead his delegation of negotiators, something that Zelenski did, which in the absence of the Russian continued with an agenda that has now taken him to Albania.
Putin’s absence in negotiations evidences that the greatest stumbling block for a peace agreement in Ukraine seems to be Moscow and not kyiv as the US president suggested in the first months of this second term that began in January.
Trump has tried to get that meeting with Putin in Istanbul taking advantage of his trip to the Middle East, which he started on Tuesday, but yesterday commented that he seemed unlikely and that they would return to Washington today.
The American president said Thursday that there will be no progress in conversations between Russia and Ukraine to find a solution to war until he and Putin are in person.
“Look, nothing will happen until Putin and I gathered, agree?”
“Look, nothing will happen until Putin and I gathered, okay?” He said showing his frustration when asked in the Air Force One about whether he felt disappointed by the level of the Russian delegation to Turkey.
During his tour, which began in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, Trump came to say that “he could” meet Putin at the close of his first exit abroad as president and that they were negotiating so that meetings in Turkey were at the level of heads of state.
