Europe pushes for Ukraine role in Trump-Putin talks
The two leaders will meet in the US state of Alaska Friday to try to resolve the three-year war, but the European Union has insisted that Kyiv and European powers should be part of any deal to end the conflict.
EU foreign ministers will discuss the talks in a meeting by video link on Monday, joined by their Ukrainian counterpart.
US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker said on Sunday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky could attend this week's US-Russia summit in Alaska.
The idea of a US-Russia meeting without Zelensky has raised concerns that a deal would require Kyiv to cede swaths of territory, which the EU has rejected.
"The path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine," leaders from France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Britain and Finland and EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said in a joint statement, urging Trump to put more pressure on Russia.
In a flurry of diplomacy, Ukraine's President Zelensky held calls with 13 counterparts over three days including Kyiv's main backers Germany, Britain and France.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Sunday he hoped and assumed that Zelensky would attend the leaders' summit.
Leaders of the Nordic and Baltic countries -- Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden -- also said no decisions should be taken without Kyiv's involvement.
Talks on ending the war could only take place during a ceasefire, they added in a joint statement.
Asked on CNN if Zelensky could be present, Whitaker responded that "yes, I certainly think it's possible."
"Certainly, there can't be a deal that everybody that's involved in it doesn't agree to. And, I mean, obviously, it's a high priority to get this war to end."
Whitaker said the decision would ultimately be Trump's to make, and there was no word Sunday from the White House.
'Testing Putin'
Top EU diplomat Kaja Kallas said any deal between the United States and Russia to end the war in Ukraine had to include Kyiv and the bloc.
"President Trump is right that Russia has to end its war against Ukraine," Kallas said in a statement Sunday.
"The US has the power to force Russia to negotiate seriously. Any deal between the US and Russia must have Ukraine and the EU included, for it is a matter of Ukraine's and the whole of Europe's security," she added.
"I will convene an extraordinary meeting of the EU foreign ministers on Monday to discuss our next steps."
Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga will also take part in the Monday afternoon meeting, the ministry said.
NATO chief Mark Rutte told ABC's "This Week" broadcast on Sunday that Trump was "putting pressure on Putin".
"Next Friday will be important because it will be about testing Putin, how serious he is on bringing this terrible war to an end," he added.
Ukraine's military said on Sunday it had taken back a village in the Sumy region from the Russian army, which has made significant recent gains.
The village is on the frontline in the north of the country and about 20 kilometres (13 miles) west of the main fighting between the two armies in the northern region.
A 'just peace'
As a prerequisite to any peace settlement, Moscow has demanded Kyiv pull its forces out of the regions and commit to being a neutral state, shun US and EU military support and be excluded from joining NATO.
Kyiv said it would never recognise Russian control over its sovereign territory, though it acknowledged that getting land captured by Russia back would have to come through diplomacy, not on the battlefield.
The EU's Kallas backed Kyiv's position on Sunday.
"As we work towards a sustainable and just peace, international law is clear: All temporarily occupied territories belong to Ukraine," the EU foreign policy chief said.
NATO's Rutte said it was a reality that "Russia is controlling some of Ukrainian territory" and suggested a future deal could acknowledge this.
"When it comes to acknowledging, for example, maybe in a future deal, that Russia is controlling, de facto, factually, some of the territory of Ukraine. It has to be effectual recognition and not a political de jure recognition," Rutte told ABC.
Zelensky thanked those countries backing Ukraine's position in his Sunday evening address.
"The war must be ended as soon as possible with a fair peace," he said. "A fair peace is needed.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Roya News
3 minutes ago
- Roya News
Trump expects 'constructive conversation' with Putin
US President Donald Trump said Monday he expects to have "constructive conversations" with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and expressed displeasure with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky for ruling out territorial concessions. The US president has spent the first months of his second term in office trying to broker peace in Ukraine -- after boasting he could end the conflict in 24 hours -- but multiple rounds of talks, phone calls and diplomatic visits have failed to yield a breakthrough. Trump and Putin will hold a summit in Alaska on Friday in a bid to halt the conflict, which was triggered by Moscow's February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It will be the first between sitting US and Russian presidents since Joe Biden met Putin in Geneva in June 2021. "I'm going to speak to Vladimir Putin and I'm going to be telling him 'you've got to end this war,'" Trump told a White House press conference, saying that he would "like to see a ceasefire very, very quickly." "I think we'll have constructive conversations," said the president, noting that he would seek out Putin's "parameters" for peace, then call Zelensky and other European leaders right after the meeting. Trump said last week that "there'll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both" Ukraine and Russia -- a suggestion Zelensky rejected. 'There'll be some swapping' The Ukrainian president warned Saturday that "decisions without Ukraine" would not bring peace and said his country's people "will not give their land to the occupier." Trump said he was a "little bothered" by Zelensky's stance on territorial concessions, and insisted that land swaps would take place. "There'll be some swapping, there'll be some changes in land," he said. But Trump also stated that he would not make a unilateral agreement: "I'm not going to make a deal, it's not up to me to make a deal," he said, while emphasizing that he thinks "a deal should be made." Three rounds of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine have failed to bear fruit, and it remains unclear whether the Trump-Putin summit would bring peace any closer. Russian bombardments have forced millions of people to flee their homes and have destroyed swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine, and Putin has resisted multiple calls from the United States, Europe and Kyiv for a ceasefire. Trump said he will know fairly quickly into the talks with Putin whether or not a deal would be coming, and that he may still walk away from trying to broker peace in Ukraine. "I may leave and say good luck and that'll be the end. I may say this is not going to be settled," Trump said. The US president said his aim is to bring Putin and Zelensky together, with or without being present himself. "Ultimately I'm going to put the two of them in a room, I'll be there or I won't be there, and I think it'll get solved," Trump said.
Jordan Times
an hour ago
- Jordan Times
The semiconductors costing Nvidia, AMD dearly
BEIJING — US semiconductor giants Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices will pay the United States government 15 per cent of their revenue from selling artificial intelligence chips to China, according to media reports. Here is what you need to know about the chips and their role in the US-China tech war: Why are these chips so important? The chips in question, according to the reports, are Nvidia's "H20" chip and the "MI308" from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). The California-based companies developed these chips -- less powerful than their flagship models -- specifically for the Chinese market. They are significant as they are AI "accelerators", meaning that they are useful in carrying out demanding tasks and computation, said Dylan Loh, an assistant professor at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University. "This is obviously a key tool to expand the AI-hungry demands of countries and companies building out their AI tools," Loh told AFP. Previously, the United States had been restricting the export of such chips on national security grounds. The two chipmakers had warned in April of big financial losses connected to these earlier constraints. Nvidia expected the previous rules to cost it $5.5 billion, while AMD forecast it could sap as much as $800 million from the company's bottom line. Why are sales to China controversial? Nvidia and other US chip companies have lobbied against the tough restrictions in recent years on selling cutting-edge semiconductors to China. That pressure appeared to have paid off last month, when Nvidia said Washington had pledged to let the company sell the H20 chips to China. The policy reversal has "raised eyebrows", Loh said. "These chips and many other chips have a dual use nature which means it can be used to advance their military capabilities in various ways," he told AFP. This includes the possible use of these chips potentially by US forces in the event of a confrontation, Chong Ja Ian, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore, told AFP. Defending the policy change last month, US President Donald Trump's AI point person David Sacks told CNBC the H20 was a "deprecated chip" that is "not anywhere close to the state of the art". He said the reversal on the H20 came because Nvidia's Chinese rival Huawei was making "huge strides" and could potentially threaten Nvidia's market dominance. Sunday's reported deal is "unprecedented" though, Chong said. "They do suggest the cost of market access in an environment of more intense major power competition," he added. There could still be obstacles ahead for the chipmakers. US lawmakers have proposed plans to require Nvidia and other manufacturers of advanced AI chips to include built-in location tracking capabilities. On Thursday, Trump demanded that the new boss of US chip maker Intel resign "immediately", after a Republican senator raised national security concerns over his links to firms in China. What does China say? China has meanwhile sought to increase its self-reliance in the field of semiconductors. Nvidia is facing growing distrust in China, with state media on Sunday labelling the H20 chips as unsafe. "The US government's decision to allow Nvidia to export the H20 to China inevitably raises some troubling concerns," said YuyuanTantian, an outlet affiliated with state broadcaster CCTV. It is not a secure chip for China, not advanced, and not environmentally friendly, it added in an article on social media platform WeChat. Beijing's top internet regulator summoned Nvidia representatives in July to discuss "serious security issues" involving the H20. The Cyberspace Administration of China said it had asked Nvidia to "explain the security risks of vulnerabilities and backdoors in its H20 chips sold to China and submit relevant supporting materials". The statement noted that, according to US experts, location tracking and remote shutdown technologies for Nvidia chips "are already matured".
Roya News
3 hours ago
- Roya News
Trump deploys National Guard to tackle Washington crime
US President Donald Trump said Monday he will deploy military and federal law enforcement in Washington as he seeks to curb violent crime in the nation's capital. The Republican leader told a White House news conference he plans to place the DC Metropolitan Police under the direct control of the federal government while sending in the National Guard. The overwhelmingly Democratic city faces allegations from Republican politicians that it is overrun by crime, plagued by homelessness and financially mismanaged -- although violent offenses are down. "This is Liberation Day in DC, and we're going to take our capital back," Trump said. Trump -- a convicted felon who has pardoned around 1,500 people involved in the 2021 US Capitol riot in Washington -- complained that police and prosecutors aren't tough enough. He had repeatedly threatened a federal takeover of the city of 700,000, saying crime in Washington is "totally out of control." The new approach echoes Trump's immigration policies that have effectively sealed the southern border amid mass deportations while deploying active-duty troops against protesters in Los Angeles. He told reporters he planned to roll out the policy to other crime-ridden cities, spotlighting problems in New York and Chicago. Unlike the 50 states, Washington operates under a unique relationship with the federal government that limits its autonomy and grants Congress extraordinary control over local matters. Since the mid-1970s, the Home Rule Act has allowed residents to elect a mayor and a city council, although Congress still controls the city's budget. Preliminary data from DC police show significant drops in violent crime between 2023 and 2024, although that was coming off the back of a post-pandemic surge. Trump posted on social media ahead of the news conference that he wants to "stop violent crime" and tackle homeless encampments, after signing an order last month making it easier to arrest homeless people. Trump ordered homeless people to "move out" of the city in a Truth Social post on Sunday, vowing to "make our Capital safer and more beautiful than it ever was before."
