{"id":10692,"date":"2025-08-20T03:07:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T03:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/10692\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T03:07:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T03:07:11","slug":"reasons-for-optimism-on-ukraine-peace-deal-but-pressure-on-russia-must-continue-taoiseach-says-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/10692\/","title":{"rendered":"Reasons for optimism on Ukraine peace deal but pressure on Russia must continue, Taoiseach says \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Taoiseach <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/micheal-martin\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/micheal-martin\/\">Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> said there is \u201coptimism\u201d and \u201cpromise\u201d following <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/politics\/2025\/08\/18\/donald-trump-meets-volodymyr-zelenskiy-and-european-powers-in-bid-to-seal-ukrainian-peace\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/politics\/2025\/08\/18\/donald-trump-meets-volodymyr-zelenskiy-and-european-powers-in-bid-to-seal-ukrainian-peace\/\">Monday\u2019s landmark White House meeting<\/a>, but world leaders must put more pressure on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/russia\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/russia\/\">Russia<\/a> to agree to a ceasefire with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/world\/europe\/ukraine-war\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/world\/europe\/ukraine-war\/\">Ukraine<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Following another \u201ccoalition of the willing\u201d meeting on Tuesday morning, Mr Martin again called on Russia to return an estimated 20,000 Ukrainian children who have been abducted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Earlier this month, Russia published a catalogue of almost 300 Ukrainian children which it said were available for adoption. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The plight of abducted Ukrainian children was raised at Monday\u2019s White House meeting, which was the first time in American political history that so many world leaders had attended one summit. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cI welcome that the talks in Washington also focused on the human dimension of securing a just peace for Ukraine and that the issue of abducted children and the imprisonment of civilians is getting the attention it deserves. I call again on Russia to return all the Ukrainian children abducted since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and to release all civilians being held unlawfully,\u201d Mr Martin said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cAt today\u2019s meeting of the coalition of the willing, I once again assured president <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/volodymyr-zelenskiy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/volodymyr-zelenskiy\/\">[Volodymyr] Zelenskiy<\/a> that Ireland stands with Ukraine and we will continue to support the people of Ukraine on their path towards a just and durable peace.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The online meeting of which the Taoiseach attended was convened by the French president <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/emmanuel-macron\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/emmanuel-macron\/\">Emmanuel Macron<\/a> and British prime minister <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/keir-starmer\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/keir-starmer\/\">Keir Starmer<\/a>. It was then followed by an online meeting of members of the European Council, which convened by European Council president Ant\u00f3nio Costa.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The meetings followed the Washington summit between Mr Zelenskiy Mr Trump and European leaders including European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Mr Martin said that reports from Mondays meeting \u201csuggest reasons for optimism\u201d. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cI again thank President Trump for his initiative and commitment which has brought us closer to our objective of ending Russia\u2019s war of aggression and achieving a just and lasting peace for Ukraine,\u201d Mr Martin said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Taoiseach said leaders on Tuesday discussed the security guarantees \u201cthat could be provided by Europe and the US to Ukraine following an end to Russia\u2019s war aggression against Ukraine\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cAs I said after the meeting of the coalition on Monday, Ireland stands ready to play our part \u2013 building on support we have already committed to Ukraine for non-lethal military equipment and our openness to contribute to a peacekeeping mission in line with the UN Charter,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Mr Martin added: \u201cWhile the talks in Washington show promise, we must continue to exert pressure on Russia to agree to a ceasefire and engage seriously with negotiations on a just and lasting peace, including through the continued implementation of EU sanctions. The conflict cannot be allowed to continue while a path to peace is laid.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"c-image audio_image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1751385259703-344bb236-da7b-40da-8b68-b022c6126080.jpeg\"\/>Ukraine: Possibility and peril as Trump pushes for Putin-Zelenskiy meeting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin said there is \u201coptimism\u201d and \u201cpromise\u201d following Monday\u2019s landmark White House meeting, but world leaders&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,356,4893,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5765,5,550,7,8,2264,4894,107,2267,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-10692","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-latest-news","16":"tag-latestnews","17":"tag-main-news","18":"tag-mainnews","19":"tag-micheal-martin","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-russia","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories","24":"tag-ukraine-crisis","25":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-volodymyr-zelenskiy","28":"tag-world","29":"tag-world-news","30":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}