Trump minimizes prospect of second meeting with Putin
(MENAFN) US President Donald Trump downplayed the prospect of a second meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, as plans for the Budapest summit were placed on hold amid disagreements over a long-sought ceasefire in Ukraine.
“I don't want to have a wasted meeting. I don't want to have a waste of time. So I'll see what happens,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office during a Diwali celebration.
Trump referenced his demand for an immediate ceasefire that would freeze the frontlines in Ukraine, saying: “I said, 'Go to the line. Go to the line of battle, the battlefield lines, and you pull back, and you go home and everybody takes some time off, because you got two countries that are killing each other, two countries are losing five to 7,000 soldiers a week.'”
Earlier Tuesday, a White House official said the summit had been paused following a “productive” call between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. On October 16, Trump had announced plans to meet Putin in Budapest within two weeks and said Lavrov and Rubio would meet to finalize details. That meeting was also canceled, according to the official.
The reason for the sudden change was not immediately clear, but Russia has resisted Trump’s insistence on a ceasefire that maintains current frontlines in the Kremlin’s over three-and-a-half-year war in Ukraine. Lavrov told reporters that the demand for an immediate ceasefire contradicts prior commitments made during the August summit in Alaska. He also suggested that European officials had urged the US to seek a temporary halt rather than a lasting resolution.
Trump added that he has “not made a determination,” though it remains unclear what he was referring to. Ukraine has requested Tomahawk cruise missiles from the US to strike deep into Russian territory, while the Senate is preparing a bill to impose new sanctions on the Kremlin.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the sanctions package is awaiting White House approval and is expected to pass quickly once introduced, already having 85 co-sponsors in the 100-member Senate.
Trump is scheduled to meet NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte at the White House on Wednesday.
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