Before returning to Washington after a tour of the Persian Gulf countries, US President Donald Trump said he intends to meet with Russian leader Vladimir Putin as soon as possible, suggesting the world will be safer soon after they meet.
According to him, the meeting will take place “as soon as we can set it up,” as delegations from the US, Ukraine and Russia gather in Turkey for the first direct peace talks with both Kyiv and Moscow present since 2022.
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On Thursday, Trump told reporters that achieving peace in Ukraine would not be possible until he and Putin “get together.”
“We’re going to do it. I actually think it’s time for us to do it,” he said.
When asked about the timing of such a meeting, Trump said during a business summit in Qatar on Friday morning: “As soon as we can set it up.”
He suggested that “in two or three weeks” the world could be “a much, much safer place.”
Hopes for a breakthrough in peace talks are low, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is in Turkey but won’t sit in on the talks, saying the White House doesn’t “have high expectations.”
Trump added of the Istanbul talks: “They all said Putin was going, Zelensky was going. And I said, if I don’t go, I guarantee Putin [won’t be] going.”
Ukraine and Russia plan on Friday in Istanbul to hold their first direct peace talks in more than three years.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had travelled to Turkey but said he would not attend the talks, after his Russian counterpart Putin declined his calls for face-to-face negotiations.
Speaking to Kyiv Post in Antalya, where NATO’s top diplomats had gathered for an informal ministerial over the past two days, two Western officials described today’s Istanbul meetings as “either a monumental mess or a very sophisticated, diplomatic game of chess
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