European foreign ministers are holding emergency talks to discuss their next steps before a meeting between United States President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday, as Europe fears Ukraine will be excluded and forced into unacceptable territorial compromises to end the Russia-Ukraine war, now in its fourth year.
In a pre-US-Russia summit push aimed at consensus, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz invited Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the NATO secretary general and several European leaders to a virtual meeting on Wednesday.
The European Union’s top diplomats held a meeting by video link on Monday with their Ukrainian counterpart Andrii Sybiha.
“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 ahead of the call.
Zelenskyy said on Monday that concessions to Moscow would not persuade it to stop fighting and that there was a need to ramp up pressure on the Kremlin. “Concessions do not persuade a killer,” he said.
Zelenskyy insists he will never consent to any Russian annexation of Ukrainian territory nor give up his country’s bid for NATO membership. European leaders have also underscored their commitment to the idea that international borders cannot be changed by force.
The EU has insisted that Kyiv and European powers should be part of any deal. The EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said “the US has the power to force Russia to negotiate seriously”, but “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.”
Credit: aljazeera.com
