The president of the United States, Donald Trump, admits now that he cannot assure Russia’s leaders, Vladimir Putin, and Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski, will meet at a summit to deal with peace, and has warned that there will be consequences if that appointment does not become celebrated. “I don’t know if they are going to find themselves. It may be, but not,” the president said Monday, in statements from the Oval Office with the president of South Korea, Lee Jae-Myung.
“We are going to see what happens after a week or two, and if necessary, I will intervene,” Trump said, repeating the deadline he usually gives when he simply wants to postpone the making of a decision without committing to a specific ultimatum.
Exactly one week ago, and three days after gathering in Alaska with Putin, the US president had completed a summit in the White House with Zelenski and several European leaders with the announcement that the preparations for a meeting between Ukraine and Russian had begun, implying that it would be held in a matter of days. The meeting, he said, would give rise to a trilateral meeting between the two enemies and himself, to try to close a peace agreement. But in Moscow there has been no receptivity to that possibility. On the contrary: Russia is brought on its road map, focused on weakening Ukraine until the busy country collapses and surrenders. As a result, the impulse for the peace that Trump boasted to be very close a week ago seems to be entering the dead.
“A meeting is not planned,” Russian Foreign Minister Serguéi Lavrov ruled out on Friday. The meeting between the two enemies came to say, it will only be busy. The Kremlin considers that Zelenski is not a legitimate president.
According to Trump, the reason why Putin avoids meeting with his enemy is “because they don’t like.” He also pointed out that after the deadline of those two weeks, if the two end up not gathering, he will decide who the responsibility is.
While the Russian drags his feet, Zelenski has agreed to see himself face to face with Putin, and has even been willing to withdraw his requirement that the fire is standing as a condition to celebrate that summit.
In previous statements, in an act of signing executive orders, Trump had revealed that he has spoken with Putin after the meeting at the White House a week ago, in which he interrupted his deliberations with the Europeans to speak with the Russian. He did not specify what precise issues they dealt with. But he revealed, without specifying if they treated him in that recent conversation, that both address the possibility of opening nuclear disarmament conversations in which China would also participate.
Beyond his words about Ukraine, the meeting with the South Korean president that Trump has held on Monday at the Oval Office was emerging key to the relationship between both partners. Seoul depends on Washington for his defense and the good progress of his economy; For the US, South Korea is a key piece in its security architecture against its great rival, China.
The encounter was the first face to face between them since Lee assumed power in June after his predecessor, conservative Yoon Suk Yeol – Favorite in Washington for his harsh positions against North Korea -, outside deposed for trying to impose martial law in his country.
Key bilateral relations
Trump warmed the meeting just three hours before celebrating, with a message on social networks that left Seoul stunned: “What is happening in South Korea? It looks like a purge or a revolution. We cannot allow that to happen and do business here. I see today the new president in the White House.” Later, the president said he was referring to records in Churches and a military base of which he had news through the Internet, and that he would clarify the situation during his conversations with his guest.
The two presidents had planned to address in the Oval Office key issues for both, since the modernization of their alliance and the improvement of their joint military capacities to trade and investments, through the regional situation and North Korea.
The economy of South Korea depends in much of the United States and its exports to that country. In case of attack, the US also guarantees the defense of South Korea, which it protects under its nuclear umbrella.
In his statements on Monday, Trump has expressed his desire to meet again in the future with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, with whom he cited face to face three times during his first term. “I have a very good relationship with him,” he said, sitting next to President Lee.
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