'No breakthrough until President Trump…': Marco Rubio on Russia-Ukraine peace talks
Marco Rubio's comments came just hours after President Donald Trump said that "nothing is going to happen" until he meets with Putin.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio believes that without President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, there might not be a breakthrough in the peace talks with Ukraine.
Putin sent a low-level delegation of his officials to resume the peace discussions in Turkey with Ukraine, while Trump will also skip the meeting.
Putin's delegation will be led by Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky and comprise of deputy foreign minister and deputy defence minister as well.
The talks, which are set to take place in Istanbul on Friday, will not be attended by Rubio either, even though he is travelling to the city on the same day, Bloomberg reported.
‘Nothing's going to happen’
Rubio said the Ukraine peace negotiations will be attended by another US team "at an appropriate level". The state secretary will instead meet separately with senior Ukrainian envoys and Turkey's foreign minister Hakan Fidan.
Speaking to reporters in Antalya, Turkey, after a meeting of NATO foreign ministers, Rubio said, "I frankly do not believe that we're going to have a breakthrough here until President Trump sits face-to-face with President Putin and determines what his intentions are moving forward."
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His comments came just hours after Trump said that "nothing is going to happen" until he meets with Putin.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, on the other hand, had earlier said that Kyiv would decide its step for peace talks in Istanbul once there was clarity on Putin's participation in the discussions.
He had said, "The answers to all questions about this war–why it started, why it continues–all these answers are in Moscow," adding that "how the war will end depends on the world".
Meanwhile top diplomats at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) meeting on Thursday accused Putin of undermining the peace talks, in reference to his decision to send a low-level delegation to Turkey.
Zelensky said he had approved a team of negotiators led by Ukrainian defence minister Rustem Umerov to sit at the talks in Istanbul. He described the Russian delegation team as a "sham".
NATO meeting
The NATO meeting on Thursday reportedly allowed the US and Europe to meet over Ukraine after the European leaders last week issued an ultimatum to Putin.
A set of European ministers also met with Rubio on the sidelines of the NATO meeting. After this, Italian foreign minister Antonio Tajani said that both the US and Europe were aligned, adding that "we are all oriented towards imposing sanctions to force Putin to face the topic of the economy".
With regard to Trump's future meeting with Putin and US' 'likely' fresh sanctions against Russia, Rubio said that Washington might wait to decide the next steps until after the US President is done with his ongoing Middle East trip.
ALSO READ | Putin 'must pay price for avoiding peace' in Ukraine, says UK PM Keir Starmer
Additionally, Rubio also revealed that all NATO members will have agreed upon on a goal of spending the equivalent to per cent of DGP on defense over the next decade by the 2025 NATO Summit in June.
Newest in the line of warnings against Russia is South Carolina Republican, Senator Lindsey Graham. He proposed a bill to enact what he calls "bone-crushing" new sanctions on Russia and tariffs on countries that buys from it.
The bill reportedly has almost 80 co-sponsors, including both Republicans and Democrats, which is more than enough to get in passed in the Senate.
Roger Wicker, who is the Republican chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said senators were looking to get a signal from Trump administration that the president is ready to sign Graham's bill.
In an interview, Wicker said, "President Putin has no intention of being peaceful. He has no intention of telling the truth. Anything he agrees to will be a lie, and he needs a strong dose of military might against him, and a strong dose of economic reality."
