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Trump says Israel and Iran have agreed to 'complete' ceasefire
RINTARO TOBITA and KEN MORIYASU
WASHINGTON -- U.S. President Donald Trump said that Israel and Iran have agreed to a "complete and total" ceasefire, roughly 48 hours after American forces conducted strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites.
Writing on Truth Social at about 6 p.m. on Monday in Washington, the president said the ceasefire process would start in about six hours, upon which time Iran will hold fire for 12 hours. If successful, Israel will begin its ceasefire for another 12 hours, Trump explained.
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The Mainichi
10 minutes ago
- The Mainichi
Summit puts Putin back on the global stage and Trump echoes a Kremlin position
In Alaska, President Vladimir Putin walked on a red carpet, shook hands and exchanged smiles with his American counterpart. Donald Trump ended the summit praising their relationship and calling Russia "a big power ... No. 2 in the world," albeit admitting they didn't reach a deal on ending the war in Ukraine. By Saturday morning Moscow time, Trump appeared to have abandoned the idea of a ceasefire as a step toward peace -- something he and Ukraine had pushed for months -- in favor of pursuing a full-fledged "Peace Agreement" to end the war, echoing a long-held Kremlin position. The "severe consequences" he threatened against Moscow for continuing hostilities were nowhere in sight. On Ukraine's battlefields, Russian troops slowly grinded on, with time on their side. The hastily arranged Alaska summit "produced nothing for Mr. Trump and gave Mr. Putin most of what he was looking for," said Laurie Bristow, a former British ambassador to Russia. The summit spectacle Putin's visit to Alaska was his first to the United States in 10 years and his first to a Western country since invading Ukraine in 2022 and plunging U.S.-Russia relations to the lowest point since the Cold War. Crippling sanctions followed, along with efforts to shun Russia on the global stage. The International Criminal Court in 2023 issued an arrest warrant for Putin on accusations of war crimes, casting a shadow on his foreign trips and contacts with other world leaders. Trump's return to the White House appeared to upend all that. He warmly greeted Putin, even clapping for him, on a red carpet as U.S. warplanes flew overhead as the world watched. The overflight was both "a show of power" and a gesture of welcome from the U.S. president to the Kremlin leader, "shown off to a friend," said retired Col. Peer de Jong, a former aide to two French presidents and author of "Putin, Lord of War." Russian officials and media revelled in the images of the pomp-filled reception Putin received in Alaska, which pro-Kremlin tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda described as signalling "utmost respect." It called the meeting a "huge diplomatic victory" for Putin, whose forces will have time to make more territorial gains. The reception contrasted starkly with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's March visit to the Oval Office, where Trump treated him like a "representative of a rogue state," said Roderich Kiesewetter, a member of the German parliament. Putin has "broken out of international isolation," returning to the world stage as one of two global leaders and "wasn't in the least challenged" by Trump, who ignored the arrest warrant for Putin from the ICC, Bristow told The Associated Press. For Putin, 'mission accomplished' Putin "came to the Alaska summit with the principal goal of stalling any pressure on Russia to end the war," said Neil Melvin, director of international security at the London-based Royal United Services Institute. "He will consider the summit outcome as mission accomplished." In recent months, Trump has pressed for a ceasefire, something Ukraine and its allies supported and insisted was a prerequisite for any peace talks. The Kremlin has pushed back, however, arguing it's not interested in a temporary truce --- only in a long-term peace agreement. Moscow's official demands for peace so far have remained nonstarter for Kyiv: It wants Ukraine to cede four regions that Russia only partially occupies, along with the Crimean Peninsula, illegally annexed in 2014. Ukraine also must renounce its bid to join NATO and shrink its military, the Kremlin says. After Alaska, Trump appeared to echo the Kremlin's position on a ceasefire, posting on social media that after he spoke to Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders, "it was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do not hold up." In a statement after the Trump call, the European leaders did not address whether a peace deal was preferable to a ceasefire. The summit took place a week after a deadline Trump gave the Kremlin to stop the war or face additional sanctions on its exports of oil in the form of secondary tariffs on countries buying it. Trump already imposed those tariffs on India, and if applied to others, Russian revenues "would probably be impacted very badly and very quickly," said Chris Weafer, CEO of Macro-Advisory Ltd. consultancy. In the days before Alaska, Trump also threatened unspecified "very severe consequences" if Putin does not agree to stop the war. But whether those consequences will materialize remains unclear. Asked about that in a post-summit interview with Fox News Channel, Trump said he doesn't need "to think about that right now," and suggested he might revisit the idea in "two weeks or three weeks or something." More pressure on Ukraine In a statement after the summit, Putin claimed the two leaders had hammered out an "understanding" on Ukraine and warned Europe not to "torpedo the nascent progress." But Trump said "there's no deal until there's a deal." In his Fox interview, Trump insisted the onus going forward might be on Zelenskyy "to get it done," but said there would also be some involvement from European nations. Zelenskyy will meet Trump at the White House on Monday. Both raised the possibility of a trilateral summit with Putin, but Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said it wasn't discussed in Alaska. The Kremlin has long maintained that Putin would only meet Zelenskyy in the final stages of peace talks. "Trump now appears to be shifting responsibility towards Kyiv and Europe, while still keeping a role for himself," Tatiana Stanovaya of the Carnegie Russia and Eurasia Center wrote on X. Fiona Hill, a senior adviser on Russia to Trump during his first administration, told AP that he has met his match because "Putin is a much bigger bully." Trump wants to be the negotiator of "a big real estate deal between Russia and Ukraine," she said, but in his mind he can "apply real pressure" only to one side -- Kyiv. Hill said she expects Trump to tell Zelenskyy that "you're really going to have to make a deal" with Putin because Trump wants the conflict off his plate and is not prepared to put pressure on the Russian president. Far from the summit venue and its backdrop saying "Pursuing Peace," Russia continued to bombard Ukraine and make incremental advances on the over 600-mile (1,000-kilometer) front. Russia fired a ballistic missile and 85 drones overnight. Ukraine shot down or intercepted 61 drones, its air force said. Front-line areas of Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk and Chernihiv were attacked. Russia's Defense Ministry said it had taken control of the village of Kolodyazi in the Donetsk region, along with Vorone in the Dnipropetrovsk region. Ukraine did not comment on the claims. Russian forces are closing in on the strongholds of Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka in the Donetsk region, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2022 but still only partially controls. "Unless Mr. Putin is absolutely convinced that he cannot win militarily, the fighting is not going to stop," said Bristow, the former ambassador. "That's the big takeaway from the Anchorage summit." (AP)
Japan Times
10 minutes ago
- Japan Times
Outline emerges of Putin's offer to end his war in Ukraine
Russia would relinquish tiny pockets of occupied Ukraine and Kyiv would cede swaths of its eastern land that Moscow has been unable to capture, under peace proposals discussed by Russia's Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump at their Alaska summit, sources briefed on Moscow's thinking said. The account emerged the day after Trump and Putin met at an air force base in Alaska, the first encounter between a U.S. president and the Kremlin chief since before the start of the Ukraine conflict. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is due to travel to Washington on Monday to discuss with Trump a possible settlement of the full-scale war, which Putin launched in February 2022. Although the summit failed to secure the ceasefire he said he had wanted, Trump said in an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity that he and Putin had discussed land transfers and security guarantees for Ukraine, and had "largely agreed." "I think we're pretty close to a deal," he said, adding: "Ukraine has to agree to it. Maybe they'll say 'no.'" The two sources, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said their knowledge of Putin's proposals was mostly based on discussions between leaders in Europe, the U.S. and Ukraine, and noted it was not complete. Trump briefed Zelenskyy and European leaders on his summit discussions early Saturday. It was not immediately clear if the proposals by Putin were an opening gambit to serve as a starting point for negotiations or more like a final offer that was not subject to discussion. At face value, at least some of the demands would present huge challenges for Ukraine's leadership to accept. Putin's offer ruled out a ceasefire until a comprehensive deal is reached, blocking a key demand of Zelenskyy, whose country is hit daily by Russian drones and ballistic missiles. Under the proposed Russian deal, Kyiv would fully withdraw from the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions that make up the Donbas area in return for a Russian pledge to freeze the front lines in the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, the sources said. "But de facto it all will depend on Putin's word of honor," another source said, adding that Trump "is inclined" to support this proposal. The shadows of U.S. President Donald Trump (right) and Russian leader Vladimir Putin are seen as they hold a joint news conference after participating in a U.S.-Russia summit on Ukraine at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday. | AFP-JIJI The New York Times also cited two senior European officials as saying Trump supported Putin's plan "to end the war in Ukraine by ceding unconquered territory to the Russian invaders, rather than try for a ceasefire." Ukraine has already rejected any retreat from Ukrainian land such as the Donetsk region, where its troops are dug in and which Kyiv says serves as a crucial defensive structure to prevent Russian attacks deeper into its territory. Russia would be prepared to return comparatively small tracts of Ukrainian land it has occupied in the northern Sumy and northeastern Kharkiv regions, the sources said. Russia holds pockets of the Sumy and Kharkiv regions that total around 440 square kilometers, according to Ukraine's Deep State battlefield mapping project. Ukraine controls around 6,600 sq. km of Donbas, which comprises the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and is claimed by Russia. Although the Americans have not spelled this out, the sources said they knew Russia's leader was also seeking — at the very least — formal recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014. It was not clear if that meant recognition by the U.S. government or, for instance, all Western powers and Ukraine. Kyiv and its European allies reject formal recognition of Moscow's rule in the peninsula. Zelenskyy has rejected any territorial concessions, saying he is bound by Ukraine's constitution. But he has not ruled out discussing the issue at a trilateral meeting with Trump and Putin. The sources said Putin would also expect the lifting of at least some of the array of sanctions on Russia. However, they could not say if this applied to U.S. as well as European sanctions. Trump said Friday he did not immediately need to consider retaliatory tariffs on countries such as China for buying Russian oil — which is subject to a range of Western sanctions — but might have to "in two or three weeks." Ukraine would also be barred from joining the NATO military alliance, though Putin seemed to be open to Ukraine receiving some kind of security guarantees, the sources said. However, they added that it was unclear what this meant in practice. European leaders said Trump had discussed security guarantees for Ukraine during their conversation on Saturday and also broached an idea for an "Article 5-style" guarantee outside the NATO military alliance. NATO regards any attack launched on one of its 32 members as an attack on all under its Article 5 clause. Joining the Atlantic alliance is a strategic objective for Kyiv that is enshrined in the country's constitution, but Russia has given that as one of its reasons for its war in Ukraine — and Trump has repeatedly ruled out the idea. "No-one knows how this could work and why Putin would agree to it if he is categorically against NATO and obviously against really effective guarantees of Ukraine's sovereignty," another source said. Still, Keir Giles, from Britain's Chatham House think tank, said Saturday that the idea was "intriguing." "If taken literally, (it) could provide the kind of essential ingredient to a lasting peace settlement that European powers have been requesting," he said. But he warned the lack of detail mean "we cannot tell at the moment whether this is in fact a meaningful contribution toward a peace settlement, or another use of potentially deceptive wording which might offer the semblance of a security guarantee while in fact providing no protection against Russia at all." Russia would also demand official status for the Russian language inside parts of, or across, Ukraine, as well as the right of the Russian Orthodox Church to operate freely, the sources said. Ukraine's security agency accuses the Moscow-linked church of abetting Russia's war on Ukraine by spreading pro-Russian propaganda and housing spies, something denied by the church which says it has cut canonical ties with Moscow. Ukraine has passed a law banning Russia-linked religious organizations, of which it considers the church to be one. However, it has not yet started enforcing the ban.
NHK
an hour ago
- NHK
Trump apparently shifts focus from Ukraine-Russia ceasefire to peace deal
US President Donald Trump has suggested that Russia and Ukraine should pursue a peace deal rather than a ceasefire, after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump and Putin met in the US state of Alaska on Friday. But they did not provide any specifics about whether progress was made on the ceasefire. After the meeting, Trump posted on social media that he held phone talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders. The US president also wrote that all the leaders determined "the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do not hold up." British public broadcaster BBC noted that negotiating for a peace deal will take time, which "suits Russia and not Ukraine." The Washington Post described Trump's suggestion as a "dramatic reversal," in line with Moscow. The US newspaper also said that Ukraine and its European allies view peace negotiations as "just a stalling tactic for Russia to press its gains." Zelenskyy plans to visit Washington on Monday to meet with Trump. Attention is focused on whether the talks will progress over a three-way meeting between Ukraine, Russia and the US.
