Europe Sets Red Lines for US in Ukraine Peace Talks
France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot confirmed that European powers have outlined a set of non-negotiable conditions for any potential peace deal between Ukraine and Russia, ahead of the next round of diplomatic talks scheduled for Wednesday in London, The Gaze reports, citing Reuters.
Barrot explained that France and its European allies conveyed their “red lines” to the United States during a meeting in Paris last week. “The only objective that concerns us is to defend French interests and European security. It’s the reason that as the US decide to place itself in a mediator position that we make them hear what our ‘red lines’ are,” Barrot said.
The Paris meeting marked the first high-level joint discussion between Ukraine, the U.S., France, Britain, and Germany since President Donald Trump returned to office. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other senior officials will continue talks in London on April 24.
Barrot declined to specify which issues are considered non-negotiable by Europe, but emphasized that any deal must serve the continent’s long-term security interests.
Commenting on Trump’s recent claim that a peace agreement might be announced as early as this week, Barrot expressed skepticism: “I think that the (Easter) truce which he (Putin) decreed somewhat surprisingly was a marketing operation, a seduction operation aimed at avoiding that President Trump gets impatient.”
As negotiations continue, European diplomats are expected to push for guarantees that any deal would not come at the expense of Ukraine’s sovereignty or European defense architecture.
As The Gaze previously reported, delegations from Ukraine, the United States, and several European countries convened in Paris for multilateral talks aimed at ending the war against Ukraine, widely hailed as positive.
Representatives of Ukraine, the UK, France, Germany and the US will meet to discuss a ‘peaceful settlement’ to the war in London on 23 April.