No, President Donald Trump is not going to Turkey to personally mediate Ukraine-Russia peace talks.
For days, Trump repeatedly stirred speculation that he might upend his Middle East travel schedule – one his team meticulously crafted for weeks — to join the Russians and Ukrainians at the negotiating table. He told reporters on Wednesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin would “like me to be there.”
But shortly after the Kremlin released a list of their delegation attending the talks – signaling for the first time Putin would not be on hand – two White House officials told CNN that Trump would also not be attending.
Whether it was an effort to save face – or simply accepting the reality that Trump’s participation was always a lofty goal – the timing of both announcements signaled another chapter in the Trump-Putin relationship.
Changing Trump’s travel schedule at this point in his three-country trip to the Middle East would have been a logistical nightmare, officials said, never mind a major diplomatic challenge to prepare the president for such high-stakes talks in such short order.
Yet that didn’t stop Trump from continuing to drop hints that he might attend.
The former reality TV star seemed to be purposely injecting a “will he or won’t he” dynamic, one that kept his supporters and even some of his closest aides and allies guessing.
Putin would “like me to be there, and that’s a possibility. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t do it to save a lot of lives and come back,” Trump said in response to a question from CNN’s Kaitlan Collins aboard Air Force One Wednesday.
He continued, “I don’t know that he would be there if I’m not there.”
Yet even as Trump toyed with going, Putin had not yet agreed to attend the talks despite proposing it himself. And Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said he wouldn’t hold talks with any Russian representative other than Putin himself.
Asked about Putin’s strategy and whether he still feels that the Russian leader is “tapping him along,” as he suggested in a previous post to social media, Trump told reporters he would let them know in a few days.
Trump first said on Monday that he was considering flying in to Turkey for the peace talks: “There’s a possibility of it, I guess, if I think things can happen.”
Trump is currently scheduled to be in Doha, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on Thursday, before flying back to Washington on Friday, as the diminished peace talks get underway in Turkey.
This story and headline have been updated with additional details.
CNN’s Caitlin Danaher contributed to this report.
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