Zelensky says the US has asked to postpone the negotiations on the war in Ukraine. “A soap opera”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that the United States has requested a postponement of the next round of trilateral negotiations on resolving the four-year-old war launched by Russia in Ukraine, Reuters reports.
Zelensky, whose remarks were quoted by various Ukrainian media at the end of his visit to France on Friday, said that the American side had conveyed that its negotiators were not allowed to leave the United States, given the circumstances in the Middle East.
He said the talks on the next round of negotiations resembled a soap opera “because of the war in the Middle East”.
“The Americans said they are ready to meet, but only in America, as the war and the security situation prevent them from leaving the United States,” Zelenskiy explained, according to the official Ukrinform news agency.
The Ukrainian delegation – he said – was ready to meet in Miami or Washington, but Russia rejected the proposal and suggested holding talks in Turkey or Switzerland, options however excluded by the US.
“I immediately said that we are ready for a meeting next week. We are preparing for a meeting in America, in Switzerland, in Turkey and even, if they are not afraid, in the United Arab Emirates,” Zelenskiy said.
Ultimately, he said, organizing the next round of negotiations is up to the American side. The negotiating team in Washington has so far been led by special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law.
Since the beginning of the year, Ukraine and Russia have held two rounds of US-mediated talks in the United Arab Emirates, followed by a new round in Geneva last month.
The main point of divergence remains the territorial issue and Russia's demand that Ukraine cede parts of the Donbas region that Moscow's forces have not captured.
