US President Donald Trump has canceled a planned meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, which was to take place in the Hungarian capital, Budapest. He announced this during a press conference with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
Trump noted that he does not consider it appropriate to hold talks with Putin at this time, so he decided to postpone the meeting, but does not rule out that such a conversation will take place in the future.
“The only thing I can say is that every time I talk to Vladimir Putin, I have good conversations, and then they go nowhere. They just go nowhere. But now look, he’s fighting for war,’ the US president said.
Recall that on October 16, Donald Trump had a telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin. During the conversation, they discussed the issue of transferring Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine. According to the American leader, the Russian president did not like the idea of supplying these weapons to Kiev.
Then the possibility of holding a meeting in Budapest was also discussed. The specific date was not specified, but Trump said that this could happen ‘within two weeks.’
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban supported the initiative to hold the summit and held talks with both Trump and Putin. According to him, Budapest has begun preparations for a “peace summit”.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó confirmed the country’s readiness to receive the Russian president, despite an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court on charges of abducting Ukrainian children. Moscow said that “it is the will of the presidents” to hold this meeting, but first the issues must be worked out by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that if he is invited to Budapest for talks between Trump and Putin, he is ready to join them.
