Trump sees ‘good chance’ of meeting Putin in Hungary
A meeting with Vladimir Putin is still possible, US President Donald Trump said on Friday, adding that he would still like to hold a summit with the Russian leader in Budapest.
Trump announced and then called off the proposed meeting with Putin in the Hungarian capital last month, claiming he did not “feel” it could bring an end to the Ukraine conflict. Both the Kremlin and the White House stressed afterwards that the talks had been postponed rather than canceled.
“There’s always a chance, a very good chance,” Trump told journalists when asked about the topic on Friday ahead of talks with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban at the White House.
The American president dodged a question about whether a summit with Putin could take place before the end of the year, but maintained he would like to meet the Russian president in the Hungarian capital at the appropriate time.
“If we have it, I’d like to do it in Budapest,” he said.
When asked about the main obstacle to meeting Putin, Trump claimed that both Russia and Ukraine are not ready for peace. “The basic dispute is [that] they just don’t want to stop yet,” the American president told journalists. He said that the conflict was taking a “big toll on both countries.”
Moscow has repeatedly stated that it is ready for peace talks as long as the situation on the ground is taken into account and the root causes of the conflict are addressed. Russia has rejected Western calls for a ceasefire along the current contact line, arguing that ending the hostilities would require a permanent solution rather than a temporary truce.
Orban struck a more optimistic note when speaking about the potential summit. According to the Hungarian prime minster, “there are one or two unresolved issues left in US-Russia negotiations” on settling the Ukraine conflict. “If they are resolved, a peace summit in Budapest could take place within days,” he told journalists en route to Washington on Thursday.
