As US President Donald J. Trump continues his frankly monumental Middle East tour, he keeps an eye on the geopolitical hot ticket of the day – the peace negotiations unfolding in Istanbul between Russia and Ukraine, with the potential mediation of the US team led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Aboard Air Force One, Trump answered some answers by the press before they arrived in the UAE, the last stage of the trip.
The Telegraph reported:
“’I don’t believe anything’s going to happen, whether you like it or not, until he and I get together’, the US president told reporters aboard Air Force One before landing in Abu Dhabi.
‘If something happened, I would go on Friday if it was appropriate’, he said.”
“The day has so far been marked by a war of words between Russia and Ukraine, with Mr Zelensky calling Moscow’s delegation ‘dummies’ and the Kremlin calling him a ‘clown’ and a ‘loser’. Direct talks between the two sides have not yet begun.”
Trump was mildly irritated with a MSM reporter trying to find some ‘negative agenda’ topic while ignoring the 4 trillion dollars in investments that his administration has raised during the trip where he has literally been treated like a king.
ABC News reported:
“’Nothing’s going to happen until Putin and I get together, okay?’ Trump said, after it became clear the Russian leader would not attend the talks in Istanbul.
‘And obviously he wasn’t going to go’, Trump added. ‘He was going to go, but he thought I was going to go. He wasn’t going if I wasn’t there. And I don’t believe anything’s going to happen, whether you like it or not, until he and I get together, but we’re going to have to get it solved, because too many people are dying’.”
Trump: “Look, nothing’s going to happen until Putin and I get together, okay? And obviously, he wasn’t going to go. He was going to go, but he thought I was going to go. He wasn’t going if I wasn’t there. And I don’t believe anything’s going to happen, whether you like it or not,… pic.twitter.com/o89DdI2Qua
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) May 15, 2025
“The return to Istanbul is symbolic, the historic Turkish city having played host to arguably the most successful bursts of diplomacy in three years of devastating warfare.
It was there in March 2022 that Ukrainian and Russian negotiators produced the Istanbul Communiqué — the framework of a possible peace agreement to end [the war].”
Read more:
THE ROAD TO ISTANBUL: The US, Russia and Ukraine Gear Up for Tomorrow’s Historic Peace Negotiations in Turkey Aimed to End the Bloodiest European War Since WW2
Read the full article here