{"id":416042,"date":"2025-01-13T17:18:23","date_gmt":"2025-01-13T16:18:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/01\/13\/svizzera-serbia-colloqui-trump-putin\/"},"modified":"2025-01-13T17:57:12","modified_gmt":"2025-01-13T16:57:12","slug":"switzerland-and-serbia-offer-to-host-ukraine-talks-between-trump-and-putin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/01\/13\/switzerland-and-serbia-offer-to-host-ukraine-talks-between-trump-and-putin\/","title":{"rendered":"Switzerland and Serbia offer to host Ukraine talks between Trump and Putin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – For more than a month, newly-rielected U.S. President Donald Trump<\/strong> has been reporting<\/a> to Vladimir Putin<\/strong> his willingness to sit at the negotiating table<\/strong> to work on ending\u00a0the war in Ukraine<\/strong>. And now, on the heels of the tycoon’s official inauguration in New York and as Kyiv’s army appears unable to repel the Russian advance, the race has begun among European chancelleries to host the peace talks<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The first to launch his own “candidacy” was last month Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico<\/strong>, who, on a controversial pre-Christmas visit to Moscow<\/strong>, has proposed<\/a> to organise in Bratislava what will undoubtedly be the summit of the decade between Donald Trump<\/strong>, whose return to the White House is set for January 20, and Russian President Vladimir Putin<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Last Thursday (Jan. 9), the tycoon reaffirmed<\/a> that his future counterpart would like a meeting and that “we are arranging it.”<\/strong> The Kremlin communicated\u00a0that the Federation leader is open to the idea<\/strong> and that there are no conditions to be met<\/strong> for the two to sit at the table.<\/p>\n

So, yesterday (Jan. 12) was the turn<\/a>\u00a0of Switzerland<\/strong>, whose tradition of neutrality<\/strong> would qualify it as an ideal setting for possible talks, and Serbia<\/strong>, one of the Old Continent’s closest countries to the Kremlin. The Swiss Foreign Ministry has clarified that Berne could grant special permission to Putin<\/strong>, against whom the International Criminal Court<\/strong>\u00a0issued an arrest warrant\u00a0<\/strong>in March 2023, to allow him to participate in the negotiations.<\/p>\n

\"Fico<\/a>
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico (left) meets Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin, Dec. 22, 2024 (photo: Gavriil Grigorov\/Afp via Sputnik)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Hague Court warrant<\/strong> is indeed an issue that would have all three countries<\/strong> that have so far signalled their intention to host the talks. Although,\u00a0\u00a0as\u00a0<\/a>demonstrated<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0<\/span>the case of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu<\/strong>‘s visit to Poland, whether or not to follow up on international arrest warrants is an eminently political decision<\/strong>, regardless of the legal obligation<\/strong> that theoretically lies with the countries that have ratified the Statute of Rome<\/strong> (the 1998 treaty that established the ICC).<\/p>\n

Serbian President Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107<\/strong> described Belgrade as an “extremely suitable”\u00a0<\/strong>venue to host the important diplomatic initiative, emphasizing\u00a0both leaders’<\/strong>\u00a0great popularity<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0in the Balkan state. “There is no country that can be compared to Serbia in terms of the\u00a0level of support for President Trump<\/strong>,” Vu\u010di\u0107 told national TV, noting at the same time that “President Putin is still very, very popular<\/strong>” and pointing out that Belgrade would qualify as an ideal venue since\u2014unlike Bratislava, but not Bern\u2014it is not part of NATO<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

However, whatever location is chosen, it seems clear that with Trump’s inauguration<\/a>, the<\/strong> negotiating process for the end of hostilities in Ukraine will accelerate<\/strong>. The authorities in Kyiv<\/strong>\u2014who are failing to repel the Russian offensive on the ground and may, therefore, be forced to give up a substantial portion of territory in exchange for peace<\/strong>\u2014are especially aware of this.<\/p>\n

The president of the former Soviet republic,\u00a0Volodymyr Zelensky<\/strong>, has admitted in recent months that\u00a0occupied regions cannot be liberated militarily by Kyiv<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0is urging<\/a>\u00a0his Western allies to provide the attacked country with\u00a0solid and credible security guarantees<\/strong>\u00a0as a deterrent against any future attacks by Moscow.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Slovak Prime Minister Fico first sparked the discussion, proposing Bratislava as the venue for possible peace negotiations between the two superpowers. Now, the “candidacies” of Bern and Belgrade have also been added, while the mandate of the International Criminal Court does not seem a real obstacle<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":242370,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25707],"tags":[26042,26411,25802,26458,26359,26071,27310],"class_list":["post-416042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-politics","tag-robert-fico-en","tag-inserbia","tag-switzerland-and"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416042"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":416059,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416042\/revisions\/416059"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}