By Thomas Escritt and Sarah Marsh
BERLIN (Reuters) -German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said European leaders had laid out terms for a ceasefire in Ukraine that would protect their security interests in a call on Wednesday with U.S. President Donald Trump.
European leaders including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy held the call with Trump in a bid to influence his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday, the first U.S.-Russia summit since 2021.
“We have made it clear that Ukraine must be at the table as soon as follow-up meetings take place,” Merz said in at the joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
“We want negotiations to proceed in the right order, with a ceasefire at the outset.”
Merz, who initiated the meeting with Trump, said that Ukraine was prepared to negotiate on territorial issues, but “legal recognition of Russian occupation is not up for debate”.
The country would need “robust security guarantees”, he said, although he did not detail what kind.
If there was no movement on the Russian side in Alaska, however, “then the United States and we Europeans should and must increase the pressure”.
“President Trump is aware of this position and largely shares it,” Merz said.
The chancellor noted that all conversations held with Putin since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine three and a half years ago had each time been accompanied by an even Russian harsher military response.
If the same occurred this time, it would show conversations with Putin were neither credible nor successful.
“If the United States of America now work towards peace in Ukraine that safeguards European and Ukrainian interests, he can count on our full support in this endeavour,” said Merz.
(Reporting by Thomas Escritt in Berlin; Writing by Sarah Marsh; Editing by Madeline Chambers and Alex Richardson)
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