U.S. and Ukraine set for high-stakes talks in Saudi Arabia on war with Russia, minerals deal
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WASHINGTON — Officials from the U.S. and Ukraine will look to turn over a new diplomatic leaf this week amid frosty relations as they descend on Saudi Arabia for talks on a potential critical minerals deal and path to ending the three-year-old war with Russia.
The State Department over the weekend announced that Secretary of State Marco Rubio would be making the trip to Jeddah on behalf of the U.S. while the Ukrainian team will include President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, foreign minister and defense minister, Andriy Yermak, Andriy Sybiha, Rustem Umerov, and Pavlo Palisa, Zelenskyy wrote in a post on X. The Ukrainian president is meeting with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Monday ahead of the talks with U.S. officials.
President Donald Trump over the weekend projected confidence ahead of the week’s high-stakes meetings, telling reporters traveling with him on Sunday that he was expecting a “good result” from Saudi Arabia and that he anticipates Ukraine will be on board with the minerals deal.
At the same time, the president, who is aggressively pushing for an end to the fighting, asserted that Ukrainian leaders have not shown him they want peace “to the extent that they should.” He said it would all “become evident over the next two or three days.”
Meanwhile, in an interview that aired earlier Sunday with Fox News, Trump said the country “may not survive anyway” when asked about whether he was comfortable potentially walking away from Ukraine in the country's three-year war against Russian invaders after the administration paused aid and intelligence to the Kyiv.
It comes as relations between Trump and Zelesnkyy have grown increasingly icy in recent weeks, reaching a peak when the pair, along with Vice President JD Vance, sparred in front of the world during an Oval Office meeting late last month that was supposed to proceed a signing of the minerals deal. The blowout cut Zelesnkyy’s White House visit short as Trump claimed the Ukrainian leader, who is pushing for security guarantees from the U.S., didn’t want to make a peace agreement to end the fighting.
But relations showed signs of warming last week when Zelesnkyy referred to how the meeting went down as “regrettable” in a post on X and said Ukraine was ready to sign the minerals deal at “any time and in any convenient format.”
Trump noted during his joint address to Congress on Tuesday last week that he received an “important letter” from his Ukrainian counterpart expressing the same sentiment.
Days later, however, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday that he was “finding it more difficult” to deal with Ukraine, even as he noted Russia was “bombing the hell” out of the country and threatened sanctions against Moscow.
The talks are taking place in the same country – although a different city – that hosted U.S. and Russian officials for conversations last month in a move that sent jitters through Europe and Kyiv, which expressed concerns about not having a seat at the table, particularly as Trump has noted he has good relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
EMEA Tribune is not responsible for this news, news agencies have provided us this news.
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