NEGOTIATIONS IN THE USA. Trump, Zelensky, Macron – Press Conference

meeting today here in Washington. The next steps ahead are the more complicated ones. Now the the path is open. You opened it last uh Friday, but now the way is open for complicated negotiations.

And to be honest, we all would like to see a ceasefire. The latest from the next meeting on I can't imagine that the next meeting would took place without a ceasefire. So let's work on that and let's try to put pressure on Russia because the credibility of this efforts these efforts we are undertaking today are depending on at least a ceasefire from the beginning of the serious negotiations from next step on.

So I would like to emphasize this aspect and would like to see a ceasefire from the next uh meeting which should be a trilateral meeting wherever it takes place. Well, we're going to let uh the president go over and talk to the president and we'll see how that works out and if we can do that.

Uh I will say and again I say it uh in the six wars that I've settled, I haven't had a ceasefire. We just got into negotiations and the uh one of the wars was as you know in the Congo was 30 years 31 years long. Uh another one that we settled last week with two great countries was 35 years going on and we had no ceasefire.

So if we can do the ceasefire great and uh if we don't do a ceasefire because many other points were given to us many many points were given to us great points please Georgia go ahead well thank you very much Donald Mr. president for hosting us today in this important meeting and I think it is an important day a new phase after 3 years and a half that we didn't see any kind of sign uh from the Russian side that there was a willing for dialogue so something is changing something has changed thanks to you thanks also to the stalling in the battlefield which was achieved with the bravery of Ukra of Ukrainians and with the unity that we all provided to Ukraine.

And the reason why I mention it is that we also have to remind that if we want to reach peace and if we want to uh to um guarantee justice, we have to do it united. So that's why it's a very good day, the one uh we are uh we are in.

You can obviously count on Italy as it was from the beginning. We are on the side of Ukraine and we uh do absolutely support your efforts uh towards peace. Uh we will talk about many important topics.

The first one is security guarantees. How to be sure that it it won't happen again which is the precondition of every kind of peace. I'm happy that we will discuss about that.

I'm happy that we will begin from a proposal which is the let's say article five uh model uh which was uh Italian at the beginning. So we are always ready to bring our proposals for peace for dialogue.

It's something we have to build uh together to guarantee peace and to defend the security of our nation. So thank you Mr.

President for hosting us. Thank you very much Emmanuel. Thank you Mr. president for organizing this uh this meeting and for your commitment and uh everything was said but I have to I just have to say here everybody around this table is in favor of peace and uh and we work very hard and we've worked very hard during the past few years to have a peace which is a robust and long-standing peace. This is why uh the idea of a trilateral meeting is very important because this is the only way to fix it.

And by the way, I think in as a follow-up we would need probably a quadrilateral meeting because when we speak about security guarantees, we speak about the whole security of the European continent. And this is why we are all united here with Ukraine on this on this matter.

In order to organize such a trilateral meeting, your idea to ask for a truce or ceasefire at least to stop the killings as we discuss is a necessity and uh we we all support this idea and in order to have such a long-standing peace for Ukraine and for the whole continent, we do need the security guarantees and the first one is clearly a credible Ukrainian army for the years and decades to come. And the second one is our own commitment all of us and uh we worked very hard during the past few months among the coalition of the willings with the support of NATO to build the different pillars of security guarantees and our commitments and you can be sure that the Europeans are very lucid about the fact that they have their fair share in this security guarantees for Ukraine but their own security is clearly at stake in this situation.

So you can count us as we can count you in order to deliver this uh robust peace for both Ukraine and Europe. Thank you very much Emanuel, Mr.

Prime Minister. Uh thank you very much Mr. President and uh thank you for hosting us here. Um can I start where Emanuel started which is we all want peace. Um the war in Ukraine has had a huge impact particularly on the Ukrainians who borne the brunt of it.

Um, but it's also had an impact on Europe and on the United Kingdom. There's not a family or community that hasn't been affected. And when we talk about security, we're talking about the security not just of Ukraine.

We're talking about the security of Europe and the United Kingdom as well, which is why this is such an important issue. I think this is such an important meeting as a group.

I think we've had a discussion on the phone a number of times, Mr. President, but be able now to be around the table to take it forward. And I really feel that we can I think um with the right approach this afternoon make real progress particularly on the security guarantees and your indication of security guarantees of some sort of article 5 style guarantees fits with what we've been doing with the coalition of the willing which we started some months ago bringing countries together and showing that we were prepared to step up to the plate when it came to security with you coming alongside the US alongside what we've already developed I think we could take a really important step forward today.

A historic step actually could come out of this meeting in terms of security for Ukraine and security in Europe. I also feel that um we can make real progress towards um a just and lasting outcome.

Obviously that has to involve Ukraine. Um and a trilateral meeting seems the the sensible next step. So thank you for uh being prepared to take that forward because I think um if we can ensure that uh that is um the progress out of this meeting both security guarantees and some sort of progress on trilateral um meeting of some sort to bring um some of the difficult issues to ahead then I think um today will be seen as a very important day in recent years um in relation to a conflict which has gone on for three and a bit years and so far nobody nobody's has been able to bring it to this point.

So, I thank you for that. Well, thank you very much. And you know, it's very interesting because this is the first for the White House. You can't say that very often.

It's seen a lot over the years over the since 1800, 1799 to be almost exact. Uh but this is the first where we've had so many prime ministers, presidents, the heads of European uh nations. And uh by the way, Alex, I'd like you to say a couple of words, too.

You're a young, powerful man. Before I finish up, I want you to say a couple of words. Go ahead. I'll I'll I'll take the notion of youth back to my wife and try to convince her. Thank you very much, Mr.

President. I think in the past two weeks, we've probably had more progress in ending this war than we have in the past three and a half years. And I think the fact that we're around this table today is is very much symbolic in the sense that it's team Europe and team United States helping Ukraine and the progress that we're looking out of this meeting uh is about the security guarantees which are a big part uh of this and then of course moving towards a process with the trilateral meeting with you um and President Putin and President Zalinski.

Um, some of the international media might wonder, you know, why is the president of Finland here? I think the reason is probably that we might come from a small country, but we have a long border with Russia over 800 miles. Uh, and we of course have our own historical experience with Russia, from World War II, the Winter War, and the war of continuation.

Uh, and if I look at the silver lining of where we stand right now, we found a solution in 1944. And I'm sure that we'll be able to find a solution in 2025 to end Russia's war of aggression and find and get a uh lasting uh and just peace. The situation is very difficult, but that's why we're here.

Thank you, Alex, very much. Good job. So, we're going to be meeting for a while and we're going to discuss some of the issues and I don't think there's any issue that's overly complex. It's at a point now where people want to do things.

I I do I really do believe I've known him for a long time. I've always had a great relationship with him. I think that President Putin wants to find an answer to and we'll see.

And at a in a certain period of time, not very far from now, a week or two weeks, we're going to know whether or not we're going to solve this or is this horrible fighting going to continue. We'll do our best to get it ended.

And uh I believe you have two willing parties and usually that's good news, but two willing parties that want to make a deal and we'll journey together and we'll go over and we'll uh see if it could be done. And it might it's possible it might not be able to be done.

On the other hand, it's possible it will. And we're going to save thousands and thousands of lives a week. And so, it's something we really have to do and or at least we have to give it our best.

It's all you can do. You can give it your best, but I think we may have a very good outcome. So, I want to thank you all and the media. I want to thank you.

We're going to be staying here for a little while. Then we're going to walk over to the Oval Office and we're going to have another little discussion uh about similar matters. And then uh they're going to go home to their great countries and report and I'm going to remain here and work and you're going to go and work.

We're all going to be working one. We may be in a different location but that's what we know how to do is work. But I want to thank the media has been actually very fair generally speaking very fair.

I think it's important that they're fair because this is a this is a very important this is a very important subject. We have to get it ended.

And so that's all we ask for is fairness with the media. Thank you all very much. We appreciate it. Thank you very much.

[Music] No, thank you for being so much every day all the time. But he loves it. He loves it for he does it. He does it always.