Viktor Orban announces that preparations for the Trump-Putin summit in Budapest are in full swing
Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Alaska. PHOTO: Kremlin / UPI / Profimedia
Preparations for the meeting in Budapest between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are still underway, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Wednesday, a day after the summit was postponed, Reuters reports.
The meeting between the two leaders was postponed, according to a White House official, because Moscow's rejection of an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine put a damper on attempts at negotiations.
“(Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter) Szijjarto is in Washington. Preparations for the peace summit continue. The date is still uncertain. When the time comes, we will hold it,” Orban wrote on Facebook.
Trump had announced last week that he and Putin would soon meet in Hungary to try to end the war in Ukraine.
Trump said Tuesday he did not want a “wasted meeting” but suggested there could be more developments and that “we will let you know in the next couple of days.”
The head of American diplomacy, Marco Rubio, was to meet in a few days with the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, before the summit of the two leaders.
But a call between Rubio and Lavrov on Monday ended without any agreement on a meeting or progress on a Trump-Putin summit, according to Axios.
The Kremlin and the Russian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday played down the prospect of a leaders' summit or even a meeting between Rubio and Lavrov, stressing that more preparations are needed.
NATO chief Mark Rutte is visiting Washington on Wednesday to meet with Donald Trump, according to an announcement made by the alliance, according to ABC News. A White House official confirmed the meeting.
According to a NATO spokesman, Rutte and Trump will discuss the war in Ukraine ahead of a meeting of the Coalition of the Will in London on Friday, a week after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy met with Donald Trump at the White House.
