Swordsmyth
07-19-2018, 10:13 PM
Vladimir Putin told Russian diplomats that he made a proposal to Donald Trump at their summit this week to hold a referendum to help resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine, but agreed not to disclose the plan publicly so the U.S. president could consider it, according to two people who attended Putin’s closed-door speech on Thursday.
White House officials didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. If Putin’s account of Trump’s reaction is accurate, it would suggest a more flexible approach than the U.S. has shown to date on the issue.
Putin gave his latest account of the meeting during at a conference (https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2018-07-19/putin-lauds-trump-s-summit-performance-hits-out-at-u-s-critics) with top Russian ambassadors and officials at the Foreign Ministry in Moscow, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing the president’s comments to the part of the session that was closed to the public. One of the people said that Trump had requested Putin not discuss the referendum idea at the press conference after the summit in order to give the U.S. leader time to mull it.
Putin’s proposal would call for a vote conducted under international auspices by the residents of the separatist territories on their status, the people said. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on the details of what Putin said about Ukraine at the summit, saying only, “Some new ideas were discussed. They will be worked on.”
On Twitter Thursday, Trump called the summit “a great success” and cited Ukraine among the areas discussed, without providing details.
Putin’s proposal will alarm Ukrainian officials after Trump last week appeared (https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2018-07-12/trump-leaves-open-possibility-of-recognizing-crimea-s-annexation) to leave open the possibility of recognizing Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, which triggered the crisis that led to fighting in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Ukraine has offered the areas autonomy under its rule and backs the deployment of international peacekeepers in the region.
More at: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/putin-tells-diplomats-made-trump-180508580.html
White House officials didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. If Putin’s account of Trump’s reaction is accurate, it would suggest a more flexible approach than the U.S. has shown to date on the issue.
Putin gave his latest account of the meeting during at a conference (https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2018-07-19/putin-lauds-trump-s-summit-performance-hits-out-at-u-s-critics) with top Russian ambassadors and officials at the Foreign Ministry in Moscow, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing the president’s comments to the part of the session that was closed to the public. One of the people said that Trump had requested Putin not discuss the referendum idea at the press conference after the summit in order to give the U.S. leader time to mull it.
Putin’s proposal would call for a vote conducted under international auspices by the residents of the separatist territories on their status, the people said. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on the details of what Putin said about Ukraine at the summit, saying only, “Some new ideas were discussed. They will be worked on.”
On Twitter Thursday, Trump called the summit “a great success” and cited Ukraine among the areas discussed, without providing details.
Putin’s proposal will alarm Ukrainian officials after Trump last week appeared (https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2018-07-12/trump-leaves-open-possibility-of-recognizing-crimea-s-annexation) to leave open the possibility of recognizing Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, which triggered the crisis that led to fighting in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Ukraine has offered the areas autonomy under its rule and backs the deployment of international peacekeepers in the region.
More at: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/putin-tells-diplomats-made-trump-180508580.html