Former US president Barack Obama hits campaign trail for Kamala Harris

MOSCOW/LONDON/KYIV: US President Donald Trump said on Thursday he thought Vladimir Putin was ready to make a deal on ending his war in Ukraine after the Russian president floated the prospect of a nuclear arms agreement on the eve of their summit in Alaska. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his European allies have intensified their efforts this week to prevent any deal between the US and Russia emerging from Friday’s summit that leaves Ukraine vulnerable to future attack.

“I think he’s going to make a deal,” Trump said in a Fox News radio interview, adding that if the meeting went well, he would call Zelensky and European leaders afterwards, and that if it went badly, he would not.

The aim of Friday’s talks with Putin is to set up a second meeting including Ukraine, Trump said, adding: “I don’t know that we’re going to get an immediate ceasefire.”

Putin earlier spoke to his most senior ministers and security officials as he prepared for a meeting with Trump in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday that could shape the endgame to the largest war in Europe since World War Two.

In televised comments, Putin said the US was “making, in my opinion, quite energetic and sincere efforts to stop the hostilities, stop the crisis and reach agreements that are of interest to all parties involved in this conflict.”

This was happening, Putin said, “in order to create long-term conditions for peace between our countries, and in Europe, and in the world as a whole — if, by the next stages, we reach agreements in the area of control over strategic offensive weapons.”

His comments signalled that Russia will raise nuclear arms control as part of a wide-ranging discussion on security when he sits down with Trump. A Kremlin aide said Putin and Trump would also discuss the “huge untapped potential” for Russia-US economic ties.

A senior Eastern European official, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said Putin would try to distract Trump from Ukraine at the talks by offering him possible progress on nuclear arms control or something business-related.

“We hope Trump won’t be fooled by the Russians; he understands all (these) dangerous things,” the official said, adding that Russia’s only goal was to avoid any new sanctions and have existing sanctions lifted.

'Like a chess game'

Trump said there would be a press conference after the talks, but that he did not know whether it would be joint. He also said there would be “a give and take” on boundaries and land.

“The second meeting is going to be very, very, very important. This meeting sets up like a chess game. This (first) meeting sets up a second meeting, but there is a 25 percent chance that this meeting will not be a successful meeting,” he said.

Trump said it would be up to Putin and Zelensky to strike an agreement, saying: “I’m not going to negotiate their deal.” Russia controls around a fifth of Ukraine, and Zelensky and the Europeans worry that a deal could cement those gains, rewarding Putin for 11 years of efforts to seize Ukrainian land and emboldening him to expand further into Europe.

An EU diplomat said it would be “scary to see how it all unfolds in the coming hours. Trump had very good calls yesterday with Europe, but that was yesterday.”

Trump had shown willingness to join the security guarantees for Ukraine at a last-ditch virtual meeting with European leaders and Zelensky on Wednesday, European leaders said, though he made no public mention of them afterwards.

Friday’s summit, the first Russia-US summit since June 2021, comes at one of the toughest moments for Ukraine in a war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Speaking after Wednesday’s meeting, French President Emmanuel Macron said Trump had said the transatlantic NATO alliance should not be part of any security guarantees designed to protect Ukraine from future attacks in a post-war settlement.

However, Trump also said the US and all willing allies should be part of the security guarantees, Macron added.

Expanding on that, a European official told Reuters that Trump said on the call he was willing to provide some security guarantees for Europe, without spelling out what they would be.

It “felt like a big step forward,” said the official, who did not want to be named.

It was not immediately clear what such guarantees could mean in practice.

On Wednesday, Trump threatened “severe consequences” if Putin does not agree to peace in Ukraine and has warned of economic sanctions if his meeting on Friday proves fruitless. Russia is likely to resist Ukraine and Europe’s demands and has previously said its stance had not changed since it was first detailed by Putin in June 2024.

PIRAEUS: A series of pro-Palestinian protests targeting an Israeli cruise ship around Greece have irritated a conservative government walking a diplomatic tightrope with Middle Eastern powers during the Gaza war.

At the crack of dawn on Thursday at the port of Piraeus outside Athens, dozens of riot police armed with truncheons, tear gas and shields sealed up a cruise terminal from hundreds of demonstrators.

Their ire was directed at the “Crown Iris,” a hulking Israeli tourist ship that has attracted protests at each of its stops in the country since last month.

Tourism is a pillar of the Greek economy, but pro-Palestinian activists say the visitors “whitewash” Israel’s devastating war in Gaza that was sparked by the unprecedented 2023 Hamas attack.

According to the All Workers Militant Front (PAME), a communist-affiliated union that called the rally, the Crown Iris was carrying Israeli soldiers.

“We cannot tolerate people who have contributed to the genocide of the Palestinian people moving among us,” protester Yorgos Michailidis told AFP in Piraeus.

“We want people everywhere to see that we don’t only care about tourism and the money they bring,” the 43-year-old teacher said.

For Katerina Patrikiou, a 48-year-old hospital worker, the visitors “are not tourists — they are the slaughterers of children and civilians in Gaza.”

Ties with Israel

Greece traditionally maintained a pro-Arab foreign policy, but governments of different political stripes have in recent years woven closer ties with Israel in defense, security and energy.

Athens has carefully tried to protect both relations during the war, accusing the left-wing opposition of undermining the strategic Israel alliance aimed at counterbalancing the influence of historic rival Turkiye in the eastern Mediterranean.

“The useful idiots for Turkiye have been in our ports, where their extreme actions seriously damage Greece’s image in Israel,” Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis wrote on X last month.

“We must protect this alliance as the apple of our eye and isolate these fools... Those who exhibit antisemitic behavior act against Greece’s interests.”

Before joining the ruling conservative party in 2012, Georgiadis was a prominent member of far-right party Laos, which had a history of anti-Semitic statements.

When first named health minister a year later, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) had urged the government to reconsider, noting that Georgiadis had made “troubling remarks” about Jewish people and had promoted an anti-Semitic book.

In 2017, he publicly apologized for having “coexisted with and tolerated the opinions of people who showed disrespect to my Jewish compatriots.”

Several protests each rallying hundreds of people attempted to prevent the Crown Iris from docking at Mediterranean islands including Rhodes, Crete and Syros last month, with occasional scuffles between demonstrators and police.

According to The Times of Israel, the ship’s owners decided to skip Syros after 200 people protested as the vessel approached.

Israel’s ambassador to Greece, Noam Katz, condemned an “attempt to harm the strong relations between our peoples, and to intimidate Israeli tourists” in Syros.

Greece’s Minister of Citizen Protection Michalis Chrisochoidis has said that anyone who “prevents a citizen of a third country from visiting our country will be prosecuted” for racism.

“Nobody is racist”

PAME accused the government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of using antisemitism allegations “to whitewash the crimes of the murderer state, suppress any reaction, and any expression of solidarity with the Palestinian people.”

“Nobody is racist, nobody has a problem with Jewish identity... Our problem is the people who support genocide,” Michailidis said at Thursday’s rally.

The October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Gaza’s Hamas rulers resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.

Palestinian militants also took 251 hostages that day, with 49 still held in Gaza, including 27 who the Israeli army says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians, mainly civilians, according to figures from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.

An Israeli aid blockade has exacerbated already dire humanitarian conditions in the devastated strip and plunged its more than two million inhabitants into the risk of famine.