{"id":5609,"date":"2025-08-17T19:42:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T19:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/5609\/"},"modified":"2025-08-17T19:42:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T19:42:07","slug":"ukraine-has-right-to-make-decisions-on-its-territory-says-taoiseach-after-trump-comments-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/5609\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine has right to make decisions on its territory, says Taoiseach after Trump comments \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ukraine<\/a> has the right to make decisions on its territory and international borders \u201cmust not be changed by force\u201d, Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> has said. <\/p>\n

Mr Martin on Sunday repeated his call for a ceasefire after US<\/a> president Donald Trump<\/a> said he backed a \u201cpeace deal\u201d that would put pressure on Ukraine to cede more land to Russia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump\u2019s pivot away from calling for an immediate ceasefire followed a meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin on Friday in Alaska<\/a> and put him at odds with the view of Ukraine and the EU. His latest comments have caused some concern among European leaders as an outright peace deal could put pressure on Ukraine to cede more territory to Russia. <\/p>\n

Mr Martin was speaking as a number of European leaders, including European Commission<\/a> president Ursula von der Leyen<\/a>, took the unprecedented step of agreeing to accompany<\/a> Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy to Washington for his meeting with Mr Trump on Monday. <\/p>\n

Leaders at a meeting of the so-called \u201ccoalition of the willing\u201d on Sunday agreed Russia would face more sanctions and wider economic measures if it does not stop its bombardment of Ukraine. <\/p>\n

Speaking after the video call meeting, Mr Martin said it is \u201cessential that Ukraine is a full participant in any discussions regarding its future\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said he welcomed the fact Mr Zelenskiy would meet Mr Trump in Washington, together with other European leaders. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Trump pressing Ukraine for a quick deal after failed summit is a clear triumph for PutinOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cAt today\u2019s meeting, I stressed the need to recommit ourselves to the primacy of the UN Charter,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor all our security, there must be respect for international law, including the principles of independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity. It will be up to Ukraine to make decisions on its territory. International borders must not be changed by force.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Taoiseach said Ukraine needs \u201cstrong, credible, long-term security guarantees\u201d, which means sustained support from Europe and the United States as well as EU membership.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur joint efforts for peace should be combined with firm and co-ordinated pressure on Russia to agree to a ceasefire and engage seriously with negotiations on a just and lasting peace,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe agreed today that sanctions and wider economic measures will be reinforced if Russia does not stop the killing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Taoiseach also called for Russia to \u201curgently return Ukrainian children who they have abducted as well as prisoners of war and civilians being held unlawfully\u201d.<\/p>\n

The coalition of the willing is a group of more than 30 countries that have pledged to support Ukraine. Sunday\u2019s meeting was the coalition\u2019s second in four days. The video call followed conversations between European leaders and Mr Trump after his meeting with Mr Putin.<\/p>\n

The meeting was kicked off by French president Emmanuel Macron, UK prime minister Keir Starmer, German chancellor Friedrich Merz and Mr Zelenskiy.<\/p>\n

Leaders discussed the US-Russia summit in Alaska on Friday as well as Mr Zelenskiy\u2019s upcoming meeting with Mr Trump. The coalition is also understood to have discussed ways to progress security guarantees and lasting peace for Ukraine. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ukraine has the right to make decisions on its territory and international borders \u201cmust not be changed by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5610,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,356,18,4893,5766,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5765,5,550,7,8,2264,4894,2263,2267],"class_list":{"0":"post-5609","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-eu","13":"tag-european-commission","14":"tag-featured-news","15":"tag-featurednews","16":"tag-headlines","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-latest-news","20":"tag-latestnews","21":"tag-main-news","22":"tag-mainnews","23":"tag-micheal-martin","24":"tag-news","25":"tag-russia","26":"tag-top-stories","27":"tag-topstories","28":"tag-ukraine-crisis","29":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","30":"tag-vladimir-putin","31":"tag-volodymyr-zelenskiy"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5609","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=5609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}