Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday said he postponed a visit to Saudi Arabia to express his disapproval of the United States and Russia beginning bilateral negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.
“We were not invited to this Russian-American meeting in Saudi Arabia. It was a surprise for us. I don’t want any coincidences, so I’m not going to Saudi Arabia,” Zelensky said after a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara.
By “coincidences,” Zelensky evidently meant that he did not want his planned visit to Saudi Arabia to be mistaken as an endorsement of the meetings held between U.S. and Russian diplomats in Riyadh this week.
“The Russian-American meeting in Saudi Arabia came as a surprise to us, just as it did to many others. Yes, we saw the media coverage, but I don’t know who will stay, who will leave, or where anyone is going. To be honest, I don’t really care. What matters to me is that our partners take time to think about us,” he said.
“Any country has a bilateral track with other countries. Please, you can discuss anything, but you can’t make a decision on how to end the war in Ukraine without Ukraine,” he insisted.
Zelensky said he has rescheduled his trip to Riyadh for March 10, with the approval of Saudi Arabia’s de facto chief executive, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS).
Sources “familiar with the matter” told Reuters on Tuesday that Zelensky “didn’t want to appear to give anything that happened in Riyadh any legitimacy.”
Somewhat awkwardly for Zelensky, his host President Erdogan chimed in to say he supports President Donald Trump’s initiative to end the war in Ukraine.
“There is a diplomatic initiative led by Mr. Trump aimed at ending the war swiftly through negotiations. This approach aligns with the policy Turkey has been pursuing for the past three years,” the Turkish leader said.
Erdogan later said he would like to host another round of peace talks, with Russia, the U.S., and Ukraine in attendance.
The meeting in Riyadh involved Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his opposite number from Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, plus other top diplomatic officials from both countries. Both sides seemed pleased with the outcome of these preliminary talks, as did MBS, who was not involved in the discussions but won some international praise for making them possible.
“We weren’t just listening to each other, but we heard each other. I have reason to believe that the American side started to better understand our positions,” Lavrov said after meeting with Rubio.
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