German Chancellor Friedrich Merz broke with the generally optimistic tone of European leaders during their meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and President Donald Trump on Monday, stating that peace talks could not continue without a ceasefire.
This follows Trump's meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday and a meeting with Zelenskyy on Monday.
Merz, who has been in office since May, issued an impassioned call for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, despite Trump having repeatedly expressed his belief that a ceasefire is not necessary to achieve a permanent peace between Russia and Ukraine.
Merz thanked the president for arranging the meeting at the White House, calling it "extremely helpful."
However, he said that "the next steps ahead are the more complicated ones."
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"Now the path is open. You opened it last Friday, but now the way is open for complicated negotiations," he said, adding, "And to be honest, we all would like to see a ceasefire at the latest from the next meeting on."
"I can't imagine that the next meeting would take place without a ceasefire," he went on. "So, let's work on that."
He urged leaders to pressure Russia to agree to a ceasefire, saying, "Let's try to put pressure on Russia, because the credibility of this effort, these efforts we are undertaking today are depending on, at least, a ceasefire from the beginning of the serious negotiations from the next step on. So, I would like to emphasize this aspect and would like to see a ceasefire from the next meeting, which should be a trilateral meeting wherever it takes place."
In response, Trump, who has said he is determined "to go directly to a peace agreement" without a ceasefire, said, "Well, we're going to let the president [Zelenskyy] go over and talk to the president [Putin], and we'll see how that works out."
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Trump pointed to his recent successes in helping to broker peace deals between other countries without a ceasefire.
"I will say, and again, I say it, in the six wars that I've settled, I haven't had a ceasefire," he said. "We just got into negotiations and… one of the wars was, as you know, in the Congo, was 30 years, 31 years long. Another one that we settled last week was two great countries, was 35 years going on, and we had no ceasefire."
"So, if we can do the ceasefire, great. And, if we don't do the ceasefire because many other points were given to us, many, many points were given to us. Great points," he added.
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Trump has previously said that if his meeting with Zelenskyy went well, they will work to schedule a trilateral meeting with Putin, presumably to get a peace agreement finalized and signed.
