‘Top officials’ from US, Russia to meet in Saudi Arabia ‘next week’ – Trump

From VIORY

US President Donald Trump told reporters that ‘top officials’ from his side, and the Russian side were set to meet in Saudi Arabia ‘next week’ to discuss Ukraine, during a meeting with Indian PM Narendra Modi at the White House on Thursday.

“Tomorrow there’s a meeting in Munich (Security Conference in Germany), and then next week there’s a meeting in Saudi Arabia. Not with myself or President Putin, but with top officials. And Ukraine will be a part of it, too. And we’re going to see if we can end that war,” he said.

Trump added that he and Modi had some ‘very big things to talk about’.

“Number one is they’re going to be purchasing a lot of our oil and gas. We have more oil and gas than any other country in the world by far, and they need it,” he said. “We’re going to be doing, I think, record business record numbers. And we’re going to work with India also. We have some very big trade deals to announce in the very near future.”

On Wednesday, Trump and Putin held a phone call, lasting 90 minutes, with both sides saying that talks on the Ukraine conflict would get underway.

Trump stated Ukraine was ‘unlikely to get all land back’ and that NATO membership was ‘not practical’ at the moment, while also backing elections in the country – which Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky has resisted during the conflict. Trump was also asked if Ukraine was an ‘equal partner’ in the talks and said it was an ‘interesting question’.

From the Russian side, the Kremlin said Trump had been invited to Moscow and stressed the need “to address the root causes of the conflict” and work out a ‘long-term settlement’ through ‘peaceful negotiations’.

Zelensky also confirmed Trump had called him following the Putin conversation, and repeated his call for Russia to be ‘pressured’ into a deal.