Oct. 21 (UPI) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he will not meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin as part of his upcoming trip to Hungary, saying he did not want “a wasted meeting.”
Trump made the remarks to reporters during the Diwali festival of lights celebration held in the White House Oval Office just days after saying he had a “very productive” meeting with his Russian counterpart ahead of a scheduled talk in Budapest on ending the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
“I don’t want to have a waste of time,” Trump said. “So we will see what happens.”
After touting his close relationship with Putin, Trump has warmed to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as his efforts to broker peace to the two-year conflict have stalled. Last month, he said that Ukraine stood a chance of reclaiming all its territory seized by Russia.
Trump on Tuesday reiterated his call for both sides to “stop where they are.”
“I said, go to the line,” Trump said. “Go to the line of battle, the battlefield lines. And you pull back and you go home and everybody take some time off, because you’ve got two countries that are killing each other.”
Zelensky, along with leaders of leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Poland and the European Union, issued a joint statement Tuesday calling for sustained pressure on Russia and for current battle lines to be a starting point for negotiations
Russia, however, has rejected that proposal with Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov saying Monday that “the consistency of Russia’s position doesn’t change,” The Kyiv Independent reported.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also rejected the proposal, saying Tuesday that “what is needed is a long-term, sustainable peace.” Stopping the conflict now “would mean ignoring the root causes of this conflict” that the Trump administration earlier expressed understanding of, he said.
“I am referring to ensuring Ukraine’s non-aligned, neutral and nuclear-free status, which entails abandoning any attempts to draw it into NATO,” he said.
Lavrov reacted with surprise to news of the meeting’s postponement, suggesting to reporters it was part of a disinformation campaign, the state-run TASS news agency reported.
Trump seemed to leave the door open to meeting with Putin.
“A lot of things happen on the warfront with Ukraine and Russia we will notify you over the next two days as to what we are doing,” he said.
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