Bloomberg: Russian and US delegations to prepare for Trump-Putin meeting by end of month
Pravda Ukraine
Senior officials from the United States and Russia will meet next week in Saudi Arabia to prepare the ground for a potential summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin by the end of the month.
Source: Bloomberg, citing sources; Politico, as reported by European Pravda
Details: The details of the meeting and the list of participants are still being discussed, but people briefed on the plans say the group of negotiators will likely consist of national security advisers. One person said the goal of the talks is to set a date for a meeting between Trump and Putin before the start of the holy month of Ramadan in March.
Another official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said most Europeans had not been informed of the meeting. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was unaware of the meeting in Saudi Arabia and expressed concern that the plan was developed without Kyiv’s participation.
“It is not possible just to say, ‘tomorrow talks will be there,’ and Ukraine will be sitting there,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on Saturday. Earlier, he stated that Kyiv “will never accept deals made behind our back”.
One Ukrainian official told Politico that the news of the Saudi talks came as a surprise to Kyiv, and there are no plans to send a Ukrainian delegation.
The US president Donald Trump said on Thursday that a summit with Vladimir Putin in the Gulf country would take place soon. And he said that Ukrainians would take part in it.
Saudi authorities have invited representatives of the US, Russia and Ukraine to a meeting in Riyadh. The source said the talks are being convened by Saudi National Security Advisor Musayed Al-Aiban. However the plans could be disrupted due to last-minute changes, the source added.
Al-Aiban is close to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and represented him in talks with Iran, as well as with Washington in negotiations on a defence and strategic cooperation agreement and the prospect of normalising relations with Israel.
Background:
- US National Security Advisor Michael Waltz and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff are expected to take the lead in the talks in Saudi Arabia. In this regard, it is unknown what role Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg will play.
- Putin, on the other hand, is assembling a team of officials with decades of experience in negotiations.
- Before that, Secretary of State Marco Rubio had his first phone call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, following Trump’s conversation with Putin.
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