Rubio names condition for Trump-Putin meeting
Photo: Marco Rubio, US Secretary of State (Getty Images)
The meeting between US President Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will depend on progress toward peace in Ukraine.
This was stated by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in comments to US media, according to Sky News and Fox News.
According to Rubio, today’s meeting between US President’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Putin was "productive," but further progress still needs to be made. He noted that Trump had already shared the outcomes of these talks with several European leaders.
Rubio added that the US would also be holding discussions with its European allies and Ukraine in the coming days to assess what kind of progress could be achieved from their side.
He said that, hopefully, if everything continued to develop, there would soon be an opportunity for the president to meet both Putin and Zelenskyy at some point, ideally shortly.
At the same time, Rubio did not rule out the possibility of a phone conversation between Trump and Putin in the coming days. However, he stated that no such calls were currently scheduled.
The Secretary of State stressed that a lot still needed to happen before a leaders’ summit could take place. In his view, it had to be Trump who would step in and make a deal to end the war.
Rubio stated that this was why the United States still needed to get sufficiently close to a certain point for a meeting between the leaders to be productive and worthwhile. He noted that the day had been a good one, but emphasized that there was still a lot of work ahead. He added that many obstacles remained and expressed hope that they could be overcome in the coming days and hours, or possibly weeks.
Trump may meet with Putin
After Witkoff’s visit to Moscow, Western media outlets stated that Putin had offered to meet with Trump "at some point." Trump responded that he was ready to do so as early as next week.
Meanwhile, according to The New York Times, Trump told European leaders that he would like to hold a trilateral meeting with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
However, US media reported that there are currently no official plans for a Trump-Putin meeting, and organizing it anytime soon will be difficult due to the need for detailed preparation and logistics.
