ANKARA (Reuters) -German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said the planned Budapest talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin were a second attempt to make the Russian president recognise the need to negotiate seriously with Ukraine.
“I see the talks in Budapest as a second attempt, after the talks in Alaska, to convince Putin at last to negotiate seriously with Ukraine,” he told reporters during a trip to Turkey.
“Ukraine will insist on this, and it will have the full support of Germany in doing so,” he added.
Speaking alongside Wadephul, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said he did not view the meeting in Budapest as one that excludes Ukraine, adding Turkey had also held separate meetings with Moscow and Kyiv before getting the sides together for three rounds of talks in Istanbul.
“I don’t think him meeting with Mr. Putin here means taking a decision in Ukraine’s absence, the United States does not have a mediator approach in that sense here, they are talking to both sides separately,” Fidan said.
“Now, he is meeting Mr. Zelenskiy first and he will get the latest data from him. Then, he will meet with Mr. Putin and we think he will have a picture emerging then,” he said.
(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu and Thomas Escritt, editing by Kirsti Knolle and Alistair Bell)
