A senior team from US President Donald Trump’s administration would begin talks in Saudi Arabia with Russian and Ukrainian negotiators on ending the Ukraine war, US officials said on Saturday.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff are to head to Saudi Arabia for the talks, the officials said.
The move comes just days after Trump announced that he had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time since returning to office, and that they had agreed to start talks on a ceasefire in Ukraine.
Photo: Reuters
The officials gave no further details of when the meetings would happen or when the officials would travel.
However, Rubio had already been due to visit Saudi Arabia as part his first tour of the Middle East, which began on Saturday when he arrived in Israel.
Rubio on Saturday had a telephone call with his Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov, in which he “reaffirmed President Trump’s commitment to finding an end to the conflict in Ukraine,” the US Department of State said.
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Lavrov and Rubio agreed to work on restoring “mutually respectful interstate dialogue” in line with the tone set by the presidents.
Former property developer Witkoff was heavily involved in a prisoner exchange deal earlier this week that paved the way for the call between Trump and Putin.
Witkoff even traveled to Moscow to bring home US detainee Marc Fogel.
In a social media post announcing the Putin call earlier this week, Trump had said he had tasked Rubio, Waltz, Witkoff and CIA Director John Ratcliffe to immediately get to work on a deal with Russia to end the war in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who met with US Vice President JD Vance in Germany on Friday, said Ukraine was not invited to the talks in Saudi Arabia and Kyiv would not engage with Russia before consulting with strategic partners.
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