The U.S. president believes that talks of Ukraine’s accession to NATO sparked the ongoing conflict.

On Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump said that Ukraine would participate in peace negotiations with Russia.

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“They’re part of it. We would have Ukraine, and we have Russia, and we’ll have other people involved, a lot of people,” Trump said and attributed the origins of the Ukraine conflict partly to Ukraine’s potential NATO membership, which Russia had long opposed.

“From day one… they’ve said they cannot have Ukraine be in NATO. They said that very strongly,” the U.S. president stated, adding that he believed talks of Ukraine’s accession to the bloc sparked the conflict.

He also confirmed that U.S. and Russian officials would meet in Munich, Germany, on Friday and that Ukraine was also invited. Trump also mentioned that high-ranking officials, though not the leaders, from all three countries would meet in Saudi Arabia next week to work toward ending the conflict.

“We’re working with (Ukrainian) President (Volodymyr) Zelensky and with (Russian) President (Vladimir) Putin, and my impression is that … I know that President Zelensky wants to make a deal, and I also feel that I know that President Putin wants to make a deal,” Trump said.

Following Thursday’s meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte stated that although Ukraine’s membership in the alliance could be part of any peace agreement with Russia, it has not been formally agreed upon.

“What I consistently have said is we have to make sure that whatever the outcome is, we have to make sure that Vladimir Putin will never, ever try again to attack Ukraine. But it has never been a promise to Ukraine that as part of a peace deal, they would be in NATO,” he pointed out.

On the same occasion, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that NATO’s European partners should assume primary responsibility for defending the continent.

“Our expectation of our friends — and we say this in solidarity — is you have to spend more on your defense, for your country, on that continent, understanding that the American military and the American people stand beside you, as we have in NATO,” he said.

On Monday, Trump said that the U.S. could conclude a rare earth minerals deal with Ukraine worth US$500 billion to secure Washington’s financial and military aid to Kiev.

He sent U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday to present Zelensky with a draft partnership agreement between the two countries to get written assurances that the U.S. would get access to its rare earth elements, oil and gas.

“I told them that I want the equivalent of like US$500 billion worth of rare earth (minerals), and they’ve essentially agreed to do that,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News.

Zelensky told reporters that Kiev would now review the preliminary draft agreement and expressed hope that a deal could be finalized at the Munich Security Conference from Feb. 14-16.

“We had a productive, constructive conversation. For me, the issue of security guarantees for Ukraine is very important, and we talked about minerals in general,” he said.

teleSUR/ JF

Source: Xinhua

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