US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that US troops would not be sent to help defend Ukraine against Russia, while in London yesterday, British Secretary of State for Defence Jonathan Healey said that the UK is still ready “to consider putting boots on the ground” to shore up any peace deal in Ukraine.
Trump said in a television interview that Ukraine’s hopes of joining NATO and regaining the Crimean Peninsula from Russia are “impossible.”
Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and other European leaders held hours of talks at the White House on Monday aimed at bringing an end to Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Photo: AFP
Trump said after his meeting in Alaska on Friday last week with Russian President Vladimir Putin that Putin was open to the idea of security guarantees for Ukraine.
However, on Tuesday on Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends he was asked what assurances he could provide that US troops would not be part of defending Ukraine’s border.
“Well, you have my assurance, and I’m president,” he said.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt later on Tuesday said that “US boots will not be on the ground” as part of any potential peacekeeping mission.
The president also said in the interview that he is optimistic that a deal can be reached to end the Russian invasion, but that Ukraine would have to set aside its hope of getting back Crimea, which was seized by Russian forces in 2014, and its aspirations of joining NATO.
“Both of those things are impossible,” Trump said.
In London, Healey told ITV that “the [British] prime minister [Keir Starmer] has made clear that he’s ready to consider putting UK boots on the ground in the circumstances of a negotiated peace.”
The military head of NATO’s forces in Europe, US General Alexus Grynkewich, was to give an update “on the current security environment” as “diplomatic efforts to secure peace in Ukraine progress,” the head of the alliance’s military committee said.
Healey said that the UK and “many other nations” wanted to support Ukraine to deter any future Russian hostilities and provide assurances that “we will stay with them to try and secure a long-term peace.”
SILENCING CRITICS: In addition to blocking Taiwan, China aimed to prevent rights activists from speaking out against authoritarian states, a Cabinet department said The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday condemned transnational repression by Beijing after RightsCon, a major digital human rights conference scheduled to be held in Zambia this week, was abruptly canceled due to Chinese pressure over Taiwanese participation. This year’s RightsCon, the world’s largest conference discussing issues “at the intersection of human rights and technology,” was scheduled to take place from tomorrow to Friday in Lusaka, and expected to draw 2,600 in-person attendees from 150 countries, along with 1,100 online participants. However, organizers were forced to cancel the event due to behind-the-scenes pressure from China, the ministry said, expressing its “strongest condemnation”
Taiwan’s economy grew far faster than expected in the first quarter, as booming demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications drove a surge in exports, spilling over into investment and consumption, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. GDP growth was 13.69 percent year-on-year during the January-to-March period, beating the DGBAS’ February forecast by 2.23 percentage points and marking the most robust growth in nearly four decades, DGBAS senior official Chiang Hsin-yi (江心怡) told a news conference in Taipei. The result was powered by exports, which remain the backbone of Taiwan’s economy, Chiang said. Outbound shipments jumped 51.12 percent year-on-year to
DELAYED BUT DETERMINED: The president’s visit highlights Taiwan’s right to international engagement amid regional pressure from China President Willaim Lai (賴清德) yesterday arrived in Eswatini, more than a week after his planned visit to Taiwan’s sole African ally was suspended because of revoked overflight permits. “The visit, originally scheduled for April 22, was postponed due to unforeseen external factors,” Lai wrote on social media. “After several days of careful arrangements by our diplomatic and national security teams, we successfully arrived today.” Lai said he looked forward to further deepening Taiwan-Eswatini relations through closer cooperation in the economy, agriculture, culture and education, as well as advancing the nation’s international partnerships. The president was initially scheduled to arrive in time to celebrate
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) yesterday said the US faced a choice between an “impossible” military operation or a “bad deal” with Tehran, after US President Donald Trump disparaged Iran’s latest peace proposal. Negotiations between the two countries have been deadlocked since a ceasefire came into effect on April 8, with only one round of direct peace talks held so far. Iran’s Tasnim and Fars news agencies reported that Tehran had submitted a 14-point proposal to mediator Pakistan, but Trump was quick to cast doubt on it. “I will soon be reviewing the plan that Iran has just sent to us, but
RSS