The World Today
The meeting will be organized within two weeks, according to Merz.
MADRID, 19 (EUROPA PRESS)
French President Emmanuel Macron has advocated for the meeting that is already being organized between the main political leaders of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, and Russia, Vladimir Putin, to take place in Europe and has proposed Switzerland as the first option.
In an interview broadcast Tuesday on TF1, Macron said that the possibility of Europe hosting the upcoming summit "is more than a hypothesis; it is the collective will" of those who participated in the meeting at the White House on Monday.
As a possible host, Macron mentioned "a neutral country." "It could be Switzerland, I want it to be in Geneva," he said after meeting with Zelensky, US President Donald Trump, and other European leaders in Washington on Monday.
Another option floated by the French president is Istanbul, the site of the latest bilateral contacts between Kyiv and Moscow. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has maintained contacts with both his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts in recent years, repeatedly presenting himself as a mediator.
Regarding possible dates, the parties' apparent interest is for Zelensky and Putin to meet within a matter of weeks. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has indicated that the preliminary schedule calls for the meeting to take place within two weeks, according to the DPA news agency.
Trump, the main promoter of the current diplomatic efforts to end the conflict in Ukraine, has limited himself for now to saying that preparations for the summit between Putin and Zelensky have already begun and outlining a format that would begin with a bilateral meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders, then open to three, with the White House resident seated at the table.
