ISTANBUL: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was to meet with top Turkish and Ukranian officials Friday after landing in Istanbul ahead of the first direct Russia-Ukraine talks in three years, a US official said.
Rubio had on Thursday played down hope of progress at the meeting, saying “we don’t have high expectations“ but has nonetheless flown in to throw his weight behind the effort.
Ahead of the talks, US and Turkish officials were expected to meet separately with the two sides.
Although Rubio will not was not expected to join the talks, which are slated to begin at 0930 GMT, he went straight to Istanbul’s Dolmabahce Palace to meet Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and his Ukrainian counterpart Andriy Sybiga, a US official said.
Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, would also join the meeting, the official said.
At the same time, Michael Anton, the State Department head of policy planning, was to hold a parallel meeting with the Russian delegation at Dolmabahce, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said.
Neither Sybiga nor Yermak are part of the Ukrainian delegation to the talks.
Zelensky sent a pared-down team to the Istanbul talks after Russia showed up with a relatively low-level delegation.
Ukraine’s negotiators will be led by Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, while the Russian side is headed by Vladimir Medinsky, a hawkish adviser to Putin who has questioned Ukraine’s right to exist and led failed talks at the start of the war.
