Ireland's Taoisiech Michel Martin praised President Donald Trump for his push for peace in Ukraine at an oval office meeting on Wednesday.
Martin emphasized Trump's efforts to bring peace in a general sense, thanking him for his hospitality at the start of the meeting.
“I praise you from the perspective of the work you are doing in terms of the pursuit of peace that we discussed earlier,” Martin said. “I think it's going well.”
While asking questions from the press, Martin spoke about Trump's “peace initiative,” and Ireland took advantage of the peace process Ireland experienced after decades of trouble.
Martin said:
One thing I learned about the peace process in Ireland to pay tribute to the President in the Peace Initiative is reminiscent of the early 90s when the first tentative steps to achieving peace in Ireland criticised people like John Hume and Albert Reynolds. And when we stopped the fire in '93, it took us years to get a comprehensive peace settlement, but once again, the guns were more or less silent. The war in Ukraine is a devastating war against young people, and I think it should be praised for its very simple and straightforward narrative. And we have children. So we are shocked by the prospect that young people will lose their lives in that number. I think anything you can do to stop violence is very positive.
Trump replied last week, saying “2,500 young people have died” in the war “while we're sitting here and talking.”
Trump also expressed optimism that a ceasefire could be reached following the Ukrainian agreement on a US-defined proposal conditioned by Russia.
“I think we have the opportunity to accomplish that, so we got half of that as a ceasefire. If we can stop Russia, there's a complete ceasefire and we'll never be back in war,” he said.
Trump said Tuesday that he hopes to speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin this week.
