WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Friday he would like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to “get this war ended” in Ukraine as he pushes for a 30-day ceasefire.
Trump, who departs on Monday on a trip to Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Qatar, was asked what his message to Putin is in the wake of a warning from the US embassy in Kyiv about a “potentially significant” air attack in the coming days. “I have a message for both parties: Get this war ended,” Trump says of Ukraine and Russia. “Get this stupid war finished. That’s my message for both of them,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
The embassy said on its website that it had received information about an air attack that may occur at any time over the next several days.
“The Embassy, as always, recommends US citizens be prepared to immediately shelter in the event an air alert is announced,” it said.
The White House said Trump had a “very good and productive” call with Zelensky on Thursday and that Trump hopes both Ukraine and Russia will agree next week to a proposed 30-day ceasefire.
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt, speaking to reporters at a briefing on Friday, also reiterated that a Trump meeting with Putin next week in the Middle East was not going to happen.
In Kyiv, Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said he spoke by telephone on Friday with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other officials about the proposed ceasefire as part of moves toward a peace agreement.
“The main focus was the question of the ceasefire and prospects for a peace settlement,” Yermak wrote on Telegram, adding that US envoys Steve Witkoff and Keith Kellogg had also taken part. Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov was also present.
“Also discussed was the importance of implementing the points on which our presidents agreed,” Yermak wrote.
Trump to Putin and Zelensky: ‘Get this war ended’
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Trump to Putin and Zelensky: ‘Get this war ended’
UN envoy hopeful on Cyprus, says multi-party summit premature
- Holguin said she was hopeful after meeting with Greek Cypriot leader Nikos Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman
- “While encouraging, the dialogue process between both leaders is at its early beginning”
NICOSIA: The key UN envoy seeking to break a deadlock in Cyprus’s long-running division said she was cautiously optimistic about a breakthrough but that it would be premature to convene a multi-nation summit on the conflict.
In an interview with Cyprus’s Phileleftheros daily, envoy Maria Angela Holguin said she was hopeful after meeting with Greek Cypriot leader Nikos Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman on December 11. She said their discussion, which agreed to focus also on confidence-building, was “deep, sincere and very straightforward.”
“While encouraging, the dialogue process between both leaders is at its early beginning. More will need to be done in order to strengthen the nascent momentum and establish a real climate of trust that would allow the Secretary-General to convene a 5+1 informal meeting,” said Holguin, a former Colombian foreign minister.
A 5+1 meeting would be an informal summit of the two Cypriot communities with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and representatives of Britain, Turkiye and Greece to define how to move forward and break a seven-year stalemate in peace talks. The three NATO nations are guarantor powers of Cyprus under a treaty which granted the island independence from Britain in 1960.
A power-sharing administration of Cypriot Greeks and Turks crumbled in 1963. Turkiye invaded the north of the island in 1974 after a brief coup engineered by the military then ruling Greece. The island has been split on ethnic lines ever since.
Turkish Cypriots live in a breakaway state in the north, while Greek Cypriots in the south run an internationally recognized administration representing the whole island in the European Union.
