President Pellegrini: World Powers Must First Agree on Ukraine

Lisbon, 27 November (TASR-correspondent) - The peace negotiations on Ukraine are currently only in the hands of the American, Russian and Ukrainian presidents - Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, respectively, and Europe will have to be part of the final decision on the peace plan, but for now it shouldn't be upset that it isn't sitting at the negotiating table, stated President Peter Pellegrini on Thursday. At a press briefing at the end of his state visit to Portugal, Pellegrini reiterated that he welcomes Trump's efforts to end the war in Ukraine. The US peace plan for Ukraine was presented last week, but it underwent extensive revisions following negotiations between the US and Ukrainian delegations in Geneva. For example, the original version assumed that Ukraine would cede the entire Donbas region to Russia and commit itself to limiting its army to a maximum of 600,000 troops and never joining NATO. The Slovak head of state admitted that the first published 28-point plan was relatively harsh on Ukraine. "On the other hand, many of those points, even though many people or many leaders in Europe don't like them, were simply based on hard pragmatism and the logic of what is or is not possible to achieve," he told reporters outside the Champalimaud Foundation in Lisbon. On Tuesday (25 November), Ukraine agreed to the main points of a revised 19-point plan. However, key issues concerning territorial concessions should be discussed by Presidents Trump and Zelenskyy. According to its representatives, Russia hasn't yet received the latest version of the proposal. It sees some parts of it as positive, while others will still need to be negotiated. Trump will send his special envoy Steve Witkoff to Moscow next week. According to the Slovak president, it's logical that world powers must first reach an agreement before the EU can join the process. He said that the Union isn't currently perceived as a strong and relevant superpower due to its condition and political leadership. Pellegrini expressed his desire for intensive negotiations between the United States and Russia to take place as soon as possible. He considers this to be a first step that could lead to the stabilisation of a peace plan and possible agreement on its final wording. "It won't be easy. I don't think that everything has already been agreed upon in the 19-point plan because we're still lacking the Russian Federation. It will be a difficult negotiation, but I think that President Trump's somewhat tougher stance, which shocked both Europe and Ukraine, has encouraged everyone, at least in my opinion, to negotiate more intensively and really do everything they can to end the war as soon as possible," said Pellegrini. am/df