President Donald Trump is preparing to attend this week’s NATO summit in Turkey, where he plans to hold a series of high-stakes meetings with world leaders in an effort to advance peace in Ukraine, according to a senior U.S. official.
Trump is expected to arrive at the summit on Tuesday. His first sit-down will be with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, the host of the summit. The White House also confirmed that Trump will meet with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa and hold a press conference during the visit.
A senior U.S. official, speaking to reporters on the condition that their name not be used, confirmed that Trump will sit down with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Wednesday. The purpose of that meeting, the official said, is to discuss “how we can end the war.”
The official described the current state of the conflict in stark terms. “The battlefield has clearly frozen over the last couple of months and neither side is making a lot of progress,” the official said. “The president feels a real sense of urgency to try to bring this to a stop.”
In addition to the Ukraine discussions, Trump is also expected to press fellow NATO member nations to increase what they spend on their own national defense, the official added.
