President Trump said Thursday that no progress would be made in the Russia-Ukraine peace talks until he meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Russian leader didn’t show up for the talks taking place Thursday in Turkey.
“Look, nothing is gonna happen until Putin and I get together, OK?” Mr. Trump told reporters on Air Force One before landing in the United Arab Emirates. “And obviously he wasn’t going to go. … He wasn’t going if I wasn’t there.”
“I don’t believe anything’s going to happen, whether you like it or not, until he and I get together,” he said. “But we’re going to have to get it solved because too many people are dying.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy traveled to Istanbul for the talks. Secretary of State Marco Rubio went as well. Mr. Putin sent a delegation to attend.
The president said earlier Thursday that Mr. Putin didn’t show up for the talks because he didn’t go.
“I actually said, ’Why would he go?’ Because I wasn’t going to go. I wasn’t planning to go — I would go, but I wasn’t planning to go, and I said, ’I don’t think he’s going to go if I don’t go,’ and that turned out to be right,” Mr. Trump said at a business roundtable in Qatar.
He said he would go to Turkey for the talks between Russia and Ukraine if it was “appropriate,” a sentiment he expressed earlier this week.
“I’d go on Friday if it was appropriate,” he said.
Mr. Trump has visited Saudi Arabia and Qatar on a three-stop Middle East trip. He will make his last stop of the trip on Thursday in the United Arab Emirates.
In Istanbul, Mr. Zelenskyy said Russia’s representation at the talks “appears theatrical.”
“We will have several hours for an important discussion and very important decisions. It is essential to understand the level of the Russian delegation, what mandate they hold, and whether they are authorised to make any decisions at all — because we all know who actually makes decisions in Russia,” Mr. Zelenskyy said on social media.
The Kremlin said Thursday that Mr. Putin would not be in attendance for the meeting. Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters there also were no plans for Mr. Putin to meet with Mr. Trump, Tass reported.
