Ukrainian President Foludmir Zellinski expressed today, Monday, his hope that the US President will attend Turkey to participate in the possible direct talks between Kiev and Moscow on Thursday, after Donald Trump announced that he was “thinking” to travel there.
“I will be in Türkiye. I hope that the Russians will not avoid this meeting. Of course, we all hope in Ukraine that President Trump will be present with us,” Zellinski wrote in a post on social media.
Trump had announced earlier today, Monday, that he was considering traveling to Türkiye on Thursday for possible talks between Ukraine and Russia, if he sees it useful.
“I am thinking about traveling there by plane … I have many meetings, but I thought that I would board the plane to go there. There is a possibility, I think, if I see things will happen,” Trump told reporters at the White House before leaving Saudi Arabia at the beginning of a tour that also includes the UAE and Qatar.
“I think that the Thursday meeting in Türkiye between Russia and Ukraine may result in a positive result, and I think that the two leaders will attend,” referring to the Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian Voludimir Zellinski.
In response to a question about whether he would impose sanctions on Russia if Putin does not agree to a 30 -day ceasefire, Trump replied: “I have a feeling that they will agree. Yes, I have this feeling.”
The proposal to hold direct talks between Russia and Ukraine to end the war, the first since the first months of the war in 2022, was welcomed by Washington and Europe.
This war resulted in the killing of tens of thousands and forced millions to flee their homes, while the Russian army is now controlling about a fifth of Ukraine, including the Crimean Peninsula that Moscow included in 2014.
