White House Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said on Sunday that he would travel to Saudi Arabia later in the day with National Security Adviser Mike Waltz for talks on how to end Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Witkoff stated this in an interview with Fox News, marking the first official confirmation that the talks would take place.
“I am going tonight. I’ll be travelling there with the national security adviser, and we’ll be having meetings at the direction of the president, and hopefully, we’ll make some really good progress,” Witkoff said.
According to him, the upcoming talks in Saudi Arabia will be among the first high-level, in-person discussions between Russian and US officials in years and are intended to precede a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
It is worth recalling that Ukrainian leaders and officials in other European countries have publicly expressed frustration that US officials have excluded them from some negotiations with the Russians.
They said they were not invited to the upcoming meeting in Saudi Arabia, adding that they would not be bound by any agreement that emerges from discussions there.
Meanwhile, Witkoff pushed back against the suggestion that the Ukrainians had been cut out of talks with the Russians.
He noted that Ukrainian officials met several high-ranking US officials during the Munich Security Conference over the weekend.
“I don’t think this is about excluding anybody. In fact, it’s about including everybody,” Witkoff said.
