Defence minister Ruben Brekelmans told Trouw in an interview that European leaders should take the lead in any peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, before Donald Trump becomes president of the US and gets involved himself.
Trump, who will take office on January 20, has said he wants to end the war in Ukraine “within 24 hours”. “But we need to ensure that European countries are at the table, so that Trump and [Russian president Vladimir Putin] do not decide Europe’s security architecture,” Brekelmans said.
This is the first time that Brekelmans has been so open about the possibility of peace talks. Until now, the cabinet has maintained that negotiations can only take place when Ukraine is ready for them.
Last week, French president Emmanuel Macron and Polish prime minister Donald Tusk also discussed peace initiatives during a meeting in Warsaw, with Tusk saying Poland has no plans to send troops to Ukraine in the wake of a ceasefire.
Brekelmans emphasised it will be difficult to get all 27 EU countries on the same page if it came to a peacekeeping force, and “given the speed necessary,” it would be an option to start with a smaller group of countries, Brekelmans said.
“But if you want to be credible, you will need a lot of countries, including the major ones,” he told the paper.
The minister, who represents the right-wing Liberal VVD party, did not want to speculate on potential Dutch participation in any peacekeeping mission. “It depends on exactly what is being proposed and what it looks like,” he said.
“We have always said as the Netherlands that we will fight in Ukraine,” the minister said. “We don’t want a direct confrontation between Nato and Russia. What is being considered now is a potential peace agreement… But it’s still too early to say what that would look like in concrete terms, so I’m not going to speculate.”
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