Saudi Arabia eyed for potential Trump-Putin summit
Speculation continues regarding the details of the meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. According to Reuters, the Kremlin is considering the possibility of organising it in Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates. Several arguments support this.
An important argument is the fact that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are not signatories to the Statute of the International Criminal Court, which has issued an arrest warrant for Putin.
Furthermore, both countries have not taken sides since the outbreak of the full-scale war in Ukraine, maintaining contacts with both Russia and the United States.
Reuters, however, points out that Russia could find the close military ties between Saudi Arabia and the United States a hindrance. Russia has already rejected mediation proposals from Turkey, a NATO member.
Trump-Putin meeting?
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday at 15:00 GMT that he would soon speak with Vladimir Putin and that both will "do something significant." However, he did not provide details.
Trump said during the ceremony approving Doug Burgum's nomination as the new Secretary of Interior Resources, "We will be speaking, and I think will perhaps do something that’ll be significant. We want to end that war. That war would have not started if I was president."
The president refused to answer whether he had already spoken with Vladimir Putin but stated that "serious" talks are ongoing between the U.S. and Russia and that more are planned.
Cited by the TASS agency, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that Russia is ready to engage in dialogue at the presidential level but has not yet received an official signal from Washington.
Trump estimated that during Russia's armed aggression in Ukraine, it lost around 570,000 soldiers, while Ukraine lost about 430,000 to 500,000.
