US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that US President Donald Trump will abandon attempts to broker a peace deal between russia and Ukraine within days unless there is a clear indication that a deal can be struck.
He said this on Friday, April 18, Reuters reports.
"We're not going to continue with this endeavour for weeks and months on end. So we need to determine very quickly now, and I'm talking about a matter of days, whether or not this is doable in the next few weeks," Rubio said in Paris after meeting European and Ukrainian leaders.
He added: "If it's not possible, if we're so far apart that this is not going to happen, then I think the president is probably at a point where he's going to say, 'well, we're done'."
Three European diplomats also told the publication that Rubio's comments reflected growing frustration in the White House with russia's intransigence to end the war.
Separately, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that some progress had been made in the peace settlement, but contacts with Washington were difficult. He said that russia was seeking to resolve the conflict while securing its own interests. At the same time, he added that moscow remained open to dialogue with the United States.
Rubio said that the Europeans should play a central role in any peace treaty, especially given that their sanctions against russia would likely have to be lifted to secure a deal.
He said that the issue of U.S. security guarantees had been raised in the talks in Paris, and said that this issue "we can solve in a way that is acceptable to everyone." But, he warned, "we have bigger challenges that we have to solve."
He said that it is clear that a peace agreement will be difficult to conclude, but there should be signs that it can be done in the near future.
"We need to figure out here now, within a matter of days, whether this is doable in the short term, because if it's not, then I think we're just going to move on," Rubio said.
The talks in Paris on Thursday were the first high-level substantive and personal talks on Trump's peace efforts that European states participated in. Rubio said that the US peace plan he presented received an "encouraging reception." Zelenskyy's office called the talks constructive and positive.
As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, Donald Trump earlier said that "this week" the aggressor country russia should deliver to the US a response to the proposal for a ceasefire in Ukraine.
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