Trump downplays Putin’s decision to skip Istanbul talks with Zelensky
The US president had pressed for the Russian and Ukrainian leaders to meet in the Turkish capital on Thursday.
US president Donald Trump said he was not surprised Russian president Vladimir Putin will be a no-show for anticipated peace talks with Ukraine in Turkey this week.
Mr Trump had pressed for Mr Putin and Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky to meet in Istanbul on Thursday, but he brushed off Mr Putin’s decision not to take part in the expected talks.
“I didn’t think it was possible for Putin to go if I’m not there,” Mr Trump said in an exchange with reporters as he took part in a business roundtable with executives in Doha on the third day of his visit to the Middle East.
Mr Trump earlier this week floated potentially attending himself.
But the US president noted on Thursday that secretary of state Marco Rubio was already in the country for meetings with Nato counterparts.
Mr Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, also plans to be in Istanbul on Friday for the anticipated Russia-Ukraine talks.
The push for direct talks between Mr Zelensky and Mr Putin comes amid a flurry of negotiations aimed at producing a ceasefire agreement between Russia and Ukraine.
Mr Putin was first to propose restarting direct peace talks on Thursday with Ukraine in the Turkish city that straddles Asia and Europe.
But the Kremlin has said its delegation at the talks will be led by Mr Putin’s aide, Vladimir Medinsky, and include three other officials.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said Mr Zelensky – who landed in Ankara at the head of the Ukrainian delegation, including other senior government figures, on Thursday – will only sit down with the Russian leader.
Later on Thursday, Mr Trump will visit a US installation in Qatar at the centre of American involvement in the Middle East.
He has used his four-day visit to Gulf states to reject the “interventionism” of America’s past in the region.
Mr Trump will address troops at Qatar’s al-Udeid Air Base, which was a major staging ground during the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and supported the recent US air campaign against Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis.
The president has held up Gulf nations like Saudi Arabia and Qatar as models for economic development in a region plagued by conflict as he works to entice Iran to come to terms with his administration on a deal to curb its nuclear programme.
Mr Trump said progress had been made in the talks but warned a “violent step” could be coming if a deal was not reached.
“Iran has sort of agreed to the terms: They’re not going to make, I call it, in a friendly way, nuclear dust,” Mr Trump said at the business roundtable.
“We’re not going to be making any nuclear dust in Iran.”
After his address to US troops, he will travel to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates for the final leg of his Middle East tour.
