Switzerland is ready to host a meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin if they request it, Le Temps reported on Saturday, citing a Swiss Foreign Ministry spokesman.
“Since the Burgenstock summit, Ukraine, Russia and the United States have been regularly informed of our readiness to support any diplomatic efforts aimed at establishing peace,” Le Temps quoted Nicolas Bideau, head of the Foreign Ministry’s communications department, as saying.
The future US Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, said that he aims to find a solution to end Russia’s war against Ukraine within the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s presidency.
“I think the biggest mistake that President Biden made is that he never engaged in conversations with Putin. I mean, he hasn’t talked to him in over two years. He needs to talk to him. That’s one of the great things that the president (Trump) is doing – he’s talking to both adversaries and allies,” Kellogg said on FOX News.
According to the general, Trump “really knows that you have to talk to people to get things done, and that’s what he’s going to do.”
“We will create the conditions for the president, and eventually he will be in a position to talk to President Putin and also to President Zelensky. And I think they will come to an acceptable decision in the short term. And when I say “in the short term,” you know, I would like to set a goal on a personal level, on a professional level. I would say let’s set 100 days,” Kellogg said.
US President-elect Donald Trump hopes to end Russia’s war against Ukraine within six months.
“I hope to have six months. I think I hope well before six months. Russia is losing a lot of young people, and so is Ukraine,” Trump said at a press conference in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, on Tuesday, referring to a timeline for ending the war.
He reiterated that this “war should never have been started.”
“This is a war that should never have happened. I guarantee you, if I were president, this war would never have happened,” Trump stated.
Earlier, Trump promised during his campaign to end Russia’s war against Ukraine in 24 hours.
Donald Trump has said that the United States absolutely needs to establish control over Greenland. He already wanted to buy the island during his first presidential term. He wrote about it on the social network Truth Social.
“For the purpose of national security and freedom around the world, the United States of America believes that possession and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity,” he wrote.
The publication reminds that the United States has repeatedly tried to buy Greenland, the world’s largest island that is not a continent, since 1867. Greenland is considered part of the continent of North America, but has close geopolitical ties with Europe and receives funding from the European Union, as it is classified as an overseas territory connected to the bloc through Denmark.
Greenland’s natural resources include gold, silver, copper, and uranium, and the waters off the coast are believed to contain significant oil reserves.
Trump put forward the idea of the US buying Greenland in 2019 during his first presidential term. At the time, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen rejected the proposal, calling it “absurd.” After that, Trump canceled his trip to Denmark.
The Ukrainian leader planned to use the grand reopening of Notre-Dame Cathedral to lobby the president-elect and other world leaders attending the ceremony.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine met with President-elect Donald J. Trump and President Emmanuel Macron of France ahead of Notre-Dame Cathedral’s grand reopening on Saturday, an event Ukraine sees as a chance to press its case to the world leaders in attendance.
Mr. Zelensky’s meeting with Mr. Trump was the first face-to-face encounter between the two since Mr. Trump won the U.S. presidential election last month.
Mr. Zelensky stepped into the Élysée Palace just after Mr. Macron met with Mr. Trump there, and the three posed for pictures ahead of a trilateral meeting.
In recent weeks, Ukrainian officials have sought to engage with Mr. Trump’s incoming administration, aiming to influence its plans for a swift end to the war with Russia in a way that aligns as much as possible with Ukraine’s interests.
These plans have so far been vague, but officials in Kyiv are concerned that Mr. Trump’s vague pledge to end the war in 24 hours could result in Russia keeping the territory it has captured and ignoring Ukraine’s demand to join NATO as a security guarantee to prevent further attacks.
Just this week, a delegation of senior Ukrainian officials and government members visited the United States and met with JD Vance, the vice president-elect; Representative Mike Waltz of Florida, Mr. Trump’s pick for national security adviser; and Keith Kellogg, Mr. Trump’s choice for envoy to Ukraine and Russia. Leading the delegation was Andriy Yermak, Mr. Zelensky’s powerful chief of staff.
Volodymyr Fesenko, a Ukrainian political analyst, said the visit’s goal was to introduce Mr. Yermak to the American officials as Ukraine’s chief negotiator, present Ukraine’s stance on future peace talks and gauge the future Trump administration’s position on the negotiations.
“What is happening now is just the first act of a prelude to the negotiations to come,” Mr. Fesenko wrote in a post on Facebook.
Ukraine’s outreach to Mr. Trump’s team has coincided with an apparent shift in Kyiv’s public stance on peace talks. After years of vowing not to cede territory to Russia, Mr. Zelensky has recently suggested he would consider doing so as a way to end the war, in return for NATO membership. Ukraine, he added, would then seek to regain its occupied territory through negotiations.
The change in position has been seen as a way for Ukraine to show Mr. Trump that it is ready to make concessions as part of negotiations.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/07/world/europe/zelensky-trump-macron-notre-dame.html
