Trump Warns US Could Ditch Ukraine Talks If No Progress

AFP/APP

Washington: US President Donald Trump warned Thursday that Washington could “take a pass” on talks to end the Ukraine war within days unless there is rapid progress from both Moscow and Kyiv.

Trump’s comments followed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s statement in Paris, where he set the clock ticking, saying the United States could “move on” from its role in brokering the negotiations.

Trump has been pressing both sides for a truce but has struggled to extract significant concessions from the Kremlin, despite an initial ice-breaking call with Russian President Vladimir Putin and repeated negotiations with Moscow.

“If for some reason one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say: ‘You’re foolish. You’re fools. You’re horrible people’ — and we’re going to just take a pass,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “But hopefully we won’t have to do that.”

The Republican president refused to cast blame on either Putin, who ordered the February 2022 full-scale invasion of pro-Western Ukraine, or Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, insisting both sides needed to make progress.

However, Trump warned that a decision on whether to abandon the talks could come “very shortly.” “No specific number of days, but quickly. We want to get it done,” he added.