Foreign ministers from the G7 nations overcame their differences on Friday to back Ukraine’s territorial integrity and warned Russia to follow Kyiv in accepting a ceasefire or face possible further sanctions.
Their joint communique followed weeks of tension between U.S. allies and President Donald Trump over his upending of Western trade, security and Ukraine-related policy.
Trump urged Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday to spare Ukrainian troops being pushed back out of Russia’s Kursk region and said there was a “excellent likelihood” the war could end.
Trump posted on social media after his envoy, Steve Witkoff, held a lengthy meeting with Putin on Thursday night in Moscow that Trump described as “excellent and productive.”
The Kremlin said Putin had sent Trump a message about his ceasefire plan, which Kyiv has agreed to, via Witkoff, expressing “cautious optimism” that a deal could possibly be reached to finish the three-year-old conflict.
Putin said on Thursday that he supported Trump’s proposal in principle, but that fighting couldn’t be paused until several crucial conditions were worked out, raising the prospect of longer negotiations.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters after the G7 meetings that there was reason to be “cautiously optimistic” a couple of ceasefire and peace negotiations after Putin’s remarks, but wouldn’t address his stated conditions.
G7 officials had feared they might not give you the chance to agree on an all-encompassing document touching on geopolitical issues from the world over, divisions that they said could have played into the hands of each Russia and China.
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“Relating to different issues, Ukraine and the Middle East, we’ve had sessions talking about these different issues, subjects, and the goal was to maintain strong G7 unity,” Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly told reporters.
The Group of Seven ministers from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the USA, together with the European Union, convened within the distant tourist town of La Malbaie, nestled within the Quebec hills, for meetings on Thursday and Friday that prior to now have been broadly consensual.
But within the run-up to the primary G7 meeting of Canada’s presidency, the crafting of an agreed final statement had been difficult with wrangling over the language regarding Ukraine, the Middle East and Washington’s desire for tougher wording on China.
The communique “reaffirmed their unwavering support for Ukraine in defending its territorial integrity and right to exist, and its freedom, sovereignty and independence.”
Ukraine’s territorial integrity has largely been absent from the U.S. narrative for the reason that Trump administration got here to power on January 20. The U.S. under Trump has up to now not ruled out the likelihood that Kyiv might cede territory.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday the difficulty of territory was discussed during a gathering of Ukrainian and U.S. officials within the Saudi city of Jeddah but it surely would require difficult dialog.
“The territorial integrity is a vital element of the communique and the (reference) to the United Nations,” EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told Reuters, referring to a call for a “comprehensive, just and lasting peace consistent with the Charter of the United Nations.”
An earlier text referring to the necessity for security guarantees to make sure a truce was replaced by “assurances,” but they did warn Moscow to follow Kyiv in agreeing to a ceasefire or face further sanctions, including oil price caps.
“G7 members called for Russia to reciprocate by agreeing to a ceasefire on equal terms and implementing it fully.
“They emphasized that any ceasefire should be respected and underscored the necessity for robust and credible security arrangements to be certain that Ukraine can deter and defend against any renewed acts of aggression,” they said in a reference to Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
British Foreign Secretary David Lammy called the statement “excellent.”
Washington had sought to impose red lines on language around Ukraine to not harm its talks with Russia and opposed a separate declaration on curbing Russia’s so-called shadow fleet, a murky shipping network that eludes sanctions, while demanding more robust language on China.
Ultimately the G7 also approved a separate statement on maritime security, including a task force to tackle the shadow fleet, something that Canada had pushed for.
The ultimate communique stated G7 opposition to any unilateral attempts to vary the established order across the Taiwan Strait by force or coercion, language that may likely be encouraging to Taipei.
There had been wrangling over language regarding Gaza and the Middle East, notably the notion of a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, something the U.S. was resisting.
The ultimate version made no mention of a two-state solution, dropping language that had stressed its importance in earlier drafts of the text.
“They underscored the imperative of a political horizon for the Palestinian people, achieved through a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that meets the legitimate needs and aspirations of each peoples and advances comprehensive Middle East peace, stability and prosperity,” the draft read.
—With additional files from Global News and Reuters
