American negotiators who met with Russian diplomats in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday said the two countries agreed on “four principles” that will move cease-fire talks between Russia and Ukraine forward — starting with the restaffing of embassies.
“For us to be able to continue to move down this road, we need to have diplomatic facilities that are operating and functioning normally,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters after the meeting, sitting alongside national security adviser Mike Waltz and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.
The meeting between the U.S. officials and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Vladimir Putin aide Yuri Ushakov — which lasted roughly 4.5 hours — is an “important first step” of a “long and difficult journey,” Rubio said.
Absent from the meeting was a representative for Ukraine or for the European Union.
Rubio’s other principles were appointing “a high-level team” to work on negotiations, beginning to discuss the economic and geopolitical “cooperation” that could come from a cease-fire, and a commitment to continuing the talks.
“This needs to be a permanent end to the war,” Waltz told reporters. “And not a temporary end, as we’ve seen in the past. We know just the practical reality is that there is going to be some discussion of territory. And there’s going to be discussion of security guarantees. Those are just fundamental basics that will undergird and underlie any type of discussion.”
During their remarks, Rubio and Waltz both reiterated numerous times that a possible end to the war in Ukraine could not have been possible without President Donald Trump.
“President Trump is determined to move very quickly,” Waltz said, pointing to the recent phone call between Trump and Putin. “And we expect to continue to drive that pace.”
Asked what types of concessions could be made, Rubio declined to offer any.
“We’re not going to pre-negotiate an end to this conflict,” Rubio said. “These are the kinds of things that have to happen through hard and difficult diplomacy and closed rooms over a period of time.”
Rubio: Russia, US need to normalize embassy staffing
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