US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he may still travel to Istanbul if there is progress on ceasefire talks between Russia and Ukraine, UNN reports, citing Daily Sabah.
Details
"You know, if something happens, I'll go on Friday," Trump said at a meeting with Qatari officials and businessmen in Doha, the capital of Qatar.
At the same time, as AP notes, Trump said on Thursday that he does not believe that the head of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, will go to Turkey for negotiations with Ukraine if he is not there.
"I didn't think Putin could go if I wasn't there," Trump said.
Trump suggested that he might go there for negotiations if Putin goes. At the same time, on Thursday, Trump said: "I actually said: why should he go if I am not going? Because I wasn't going to go. I wasn't planning to go. I would have gone, but I wasn't planning to go. And I said, I don't think he'll go if I don't go."
Addition
Potential negotiations between Ukraine and the Russian Federation are expected on May 15 in Istanbul, Turkey.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated on May 11 that he expects a ceasefire from the Russian Federation and that he will personally wait for Vladimir Putin in Turkey on May 15. But he stated that he would not negotiate with any representative of Russia except Putin himself.
On the night of May 15, the Kremlin announced the participants of the Russian Federation delegation to the negotiations in Turkey, but the level was even lower than expected, when the media reported that the meeting may be attended by the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Serhiy Lavrov. Putin was also not listed in the Kremlin as a participant in the negotiations in Turkey, scheduled for Thursday, despite the fact that he himself proposed it.