U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday the United States hopes to resolve the pause in aid to Ukraine during talks Tuesday with Ukrainian officials in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Rubio said the U.S. is in a listening mode and aims to understand what concessions Ukraine might be willing to make.
“The Ukrainians are already receiving all defensive intelligence information as we speak. I think all the notion of the pause in aid broadly is something I hope we can resolve. Obviously, I think what happens tomorrow will be key to that,” Rubio told reporters aboard a military plane before landing in Jeddah.
“We’re not going to be sitting in a room drawing lines on a map but just get a general sense of what concessions are in the realm of the possible for them [Ukrainians],” Rubio said, adding that there is no military solution to the war, and that both Russia and Ukraine need to “do difficult things.”
Later on Monday, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met with Rubio in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah.
Salman held a separate meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Riyadh earlier in the day.
On Tuesday, Rubio will join U.S. national security adviser Mike Waltz for the Jeddah talks with Ukrainian officials as President Donald Trump pushes to broker a swift end to the war.
The Ukrainian delegation includes Zelenskyy’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak; Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha; Defense Minister Rustem Umerov; and military commander Pavlo Palisa.
“Strong positions on the front line and strong diplomacy must work together to achieve a just and lasting peace,” Zelenskyy wrote in a social media posting late Monday.
Mineral deal?
Trump has voiced interest in making continued military aid conditional on access to Ukraine’s raw materials.
More than four dozen minerals, including several types of rare earths, nickel and lithium, are considered critical to the U.S. economy and national defense. Ukraine has large deposits of uranium, lithium and titanium.
But Rubio clarified that securing a deal on Ukraine’s mineral resources was not the primary focus of Tuesday’s talks.
“There’s still more details to work out, and at this point, we’re probably — rather than a memorandum of understanding — just wanting to sign a specific agreement. And that would take a little bit more time,” he told reporters.
“I wouldn’t prejudge tomorrow by whether or not we have a minerals deal. … It’s an important topic, but it’s not the main topic on the agenda,” Rubio added.
Rubio also credited Britain and France for playing a constructive role in talks with Ukraine.
He told VOA that there have been no discussions about China playing a role in postwar peacekeeping and reconstruction in Ukraine.
This marks Rubio’s second visit to Saudi Arabia since taking office. He and other senior U.S. officials held talks with Russian officials in Riyadh on Feb. 18. He is scheduled to travel to Canada on Wednesday for meetings with G7 foreign ministers.
