FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
US President Donald Trump has stated that he is disappointed, but not finished with Vladimir Putin yet.
The US president was asked if he trusted the Russian leader and replied: " I trust almost no one . "
Trump spoke hours after announcing plans to send weapons to Ukraine and warned of tough tariffs on Russia if there was no ceasefire agreement within 50 days.
In an interview from the Oval Office, the president also backed NATO, having once described it as obsolete, and affirmed his support for the organization's principle of mutual defense.
The president gave a 20-minute interview with the BBC after talks about a possible interview to mark the one-year anniversary of the attempt on his life at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Asked if surviving the assassination had changed him, Trump said he liked to think about it as little as possible.
"I don't like to think about whether this has changed me ," Trump said.
However, having just met with NATO chief Mark Rutte at the White House, the president spent a significant portion of the interview speaking at length about his disappointment with the Russian leader.
Trump said he thought a deal was in the works with Russia four different times.
When asked by the BBC if he was done with Putin, the president replied: "I'm disappointed with him, but I'm not done with him. But I'm disappointed in him."
Asked how Trump would convince Putin to "stop the bloodshed," the US president said: "We're working on it, Gary. We'll have a great conversation. I'll say, 'That's great, I think we're close to the end,' and then he'll knock down a building in Kiev."
The conversation turned to NATO, which Trump has previously criticized as "obsolete."
Asked if he still thought that was the case, he said: "No. I think NATO is now becoming the opposite of that," because the alliance was "paying its own bills."
He said he still believed in collective defense because it meant smaller countries could defend themselves against larger countries.
President Trump was also asked about the UK's future in the world and said he thought it was a "great place, you know I own property there"./BBC
Lini një Përgjigje