New York (AP)-Special American envoy Steve Witcoff said on Sunday that Russian leader Vladimir Putin agreed at his summit with President Donald Trump to offer a safety guarantee to Ukraine to the US and European colleagues, which is similar to the collective defense mandate of NATO.
“We were able to win the following concessions: that the United States could provide security like Article 5, which Ukraine wants to be in NATO, it is one of the real reasons,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union”. He said that this was “the first time we had ever heard of Russians agreeing.”
Speaking at a news conference with European Commission Chairman Ursula von Der Leyen at a news conference with Ukrainian President Volodimier Zelanski, “We welcome President Trump’s will to contribute to the security guarantee like Article 5 for Ukraine and ‘Interested’s coalition’ is ready to share the partner of the Union.”
Offering a few first details of the first information discussed at the Friday’s summit in Witchoff, Alaska, the two sides stated that “a strong security guarantee that I will describe as a game-changing.” He said that Russia said that it would make a legislative commitment to not go after any additional field in Ukraine.
Zelancesi thanked the United States for recent signals that Washington is ready to support the safety guarantee for Ukraine, but said the details are not clear.
“It is important that the US agrees to work with Europe to provide security guarantee for Ukraine,” he said, “but there is no description of how it will work, and what will be the role of America, what will be the role of Europe and what the European Union can do, and this is our main task, we need security to work like Article 5 of NATO, and we consider to be a part of security guarantee.
Vicchoff defended the immediate ceasefire to give up his push for Russian to defend Trump’s decision, saying that the President moved to a peace deal because so much progress was made.
“We covered almost all other issues required for the peace deal,” Vitkoff said.
He said, “We start looking at some moderation in the way we think about a final peace deal,” he said.
State Secretary Marco Rubio stressed that “additional results” would be as Trump had warned before the meeting with Putin, if he failed to reach a ceasefire. But Rubio said that when Ukraine was not in talks, there was no deal of any kind.
Rubio said on the “this week” of ABC, “Now, eventually, if there is no peace agreement, if this war does not end, the President has become clear, it is going to result in results,” Rubio said on “this week” of ABC. “But we are trying to avoid this. And the way we are trying to avoid those results, it is a even better result, which is peace, the end of enmity.”
Rubio, who is also Trump’s National Security Advisor, said he did not believe that releasing new restrictions on Russia would force Putin to accept a ceasefire, given that the latter is not far from the table, but “the best way to end this struggle is through a full peace deal.”
Rubio said on NBC’s “Meat the Press”, “My ability to bring them to the table, our ability to bring them to the table will be severely reduced.”
He also said that “we are not on depression of a peace agreement” and it will not be easy to reach there and will take a lot of work.
“We progressed in the sense that we identified the possible areas of the agreement, but some large areas of disagreement remain. So we are still a long way away,” Rubio said.
Zelansky and European leaders have been scheduled to meet with Trump at the White House on Monday. He listened to the President after his meeting with Putin.
“I think everyone agreed that we have progressed. Probably not enough for a peace deal, but we are on the way for the first time,” said Witcoff.
He said: “The fundamental issue, which is the exchange of any kind of land, which is clearly under the control of Ukrainian – could not be discussed in this meeting” with Putin. “We intend to discuss this on Monday. Hopefully we have some clarity and hope that very soon, will soon end in a peace deal.”
Jill Calvin, Associated Press