On Sunday, Rutte gave interviews to two American television – ABC and CBS, in both praising Donald Trump's diplomacy and his planned meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska. When asked by CBS journalist Margaret Brennan about comparison of the meeting to this from Munich, where the annexation of Czech territory was approved by Germany in exchange for a temporary room, the Dutchman said that the peak in Alaska would be a test for Putin.
– What will happen on Friday is a test for Putin on the part of President Trump (…) and of course, when it comes to peace conversations, weapon suspension and what will happen later, in the matter of territories, regarding security guarantee for Ukraine, Ukraine will have to be involved and will be at the table. But on Friday it is important to see how serious Putin is, and the only one who can do it is President Trump – said Rutte.
“We are all agreeing”
He noted that no final arrangement would be agreed during talks in Alaska, because Ukraine and Europe will have a voice in the case.
He also noted that although the potential system is based on territory and security guarantees, the West would never legally recognize the annexation of occupied Ukrainian territories, just like the US has never recognized the annexation of the Baltic States by the USSR. He also noted that it is not Russia who will decide whether Ukraine will be able to join NATO.
– We are all agreed: Americans, Europeans and Ukraine – that when it comes to the geostrategic location of Ukraine, its future, the size of the Ukrainian army, NATO (…) Putin has absolutely nothing to say in any of these issues – he emphasized.
The US ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker in an interview with CNN spoke similarly on this topic.
– Whether membership in NATO is possible or not, ultimately Russia decides about it. The decision -makers are 32 NATO Member States, which must unanimously agree to admit anyone to NATO. And you know, there are many steps along the way before that happens. But at the same time Russia has no voice in this matter, I can assure you – said the diplomat.
Rutte appealed to Munich. “It will be a repeat”
Both he and Rutte suggested that the supplies of American weapons of NATO purchased by you would continue regardless of the results of talks in Alaska. Whitaker assessed that these purchases probably prompted Putin to change the negotiating position. Rutte announced that further decisions will be announced soon as part of this process, after the Packages of the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries.
On Saturday, Max Boot, a commentator of “Washington Post”, a historian and expert of the American Council of Foreign Relations, compared the peak to Munich from 1938. According to him, Trump's desperate treatments for the Nobel Prize for peace in Ukraine make it manipulate Putin and threaten to repeat the agreement with Munich in 1938.
“If Trump agrees to Putin's conditions, it will be a repeat from the Munich agreement in 1938, in which British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain gave Hitler the Czech Sudetes (…) without consulting the Czechs,” warned the commentator.
Boot reminded that Chamberlain did not receive anything in return, except for the vague promises of the room. Winston Churchill commented in this way: “We had a choice between the disgrace and war, we chose the disgrace and we will have war.”
