Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized the Russian-American talks in Riyadh for excluding Kiev from them. According to him, “fair” efforts to end the war, which should also include European countries, including Turkey, note the agencies quoted by BTA.
The Ukrainian leader's statement came after Washington and Moscow announced that they would send negotiating teams to negotiate an end to the military conflict, which took place within the framework of the first official high-level meeting between them since the beginning of the Russian attack on Ukraine almost three years ago.
Zelensky said this after a nearly three-hour meeting in Ankara with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
„We saw who is capable of providing guarantees for Ukraine's security. We saw the US, the EU, plus the rest of Europe that is not in the European Union. And this also applies to Turkey. "We would not mind if Turkey is also ready to provide Ukraine with security guarantees," Zelensky said, quoted by the Ukrainian UNIAN news agency, which added that, according to the Ukrainian leader, before his conversation with Erdogan, he had indicated that he intended to discuss this with his Turkish counterpart.
Any efforts to end the conflict must be "fair," the Ukrainian leader said, criticizing the Russian-American talks held yesterday in Riyadh. He reiterated his position against "any decision-making on Ukraine without Ukraine."
Zelensky announced that he was not invited to yesterday's meeting, so he is canceling his visit to Saudi Arabia, which was scheduled for today, postponing it to a later date - March 10.
The radical changes that have occurred in American policy towards Russia since the coming to power of billionaire Republican Donald Trump across the ocean have raised concerns that Washington may be preparing to force Ukraine to conclude an agreement that is beneficial to Moscow, not to it, AFP notes.
These fears have intensified even more after the Riyadh talks, during which US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov met to discuss European security and Ukraine - without representatives from Kiev and Brussels.
Standing next to Zelensky, Erdogan indicated that Turkey would be the “ideal host” of possible talks in the Russia - Ukraine format - The US, and recalled how representatives of Moscow and Kiev met in Istanbul, immediately after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, AFP and Anadolu Agency indicate.
“Turkey would be an ideal host for possible talks between Russia, Ukraine and America in the near future“, the Turkish leader said.
Zelensky's visit to Turkey was his third since the beginning of the Russian attack and fits into the Ukrainian president's efforts to strengthen Kiev's positions in relation to the new policy of the outstretched hand adopted by Trump towards Moscow, AFP notes.
THE OTHER SIGNIFICANT ABSENT IN RIYADH
Apart from Kiev, the other significant absentee from the negotiating table in the Saudi capital was Europe.
The main fears of European governments from the current geopolitical processes are related that the Old Continent could be left out of the talks between Washington and Moscow, which could ultimately shape the future security architecture in Europe without the participation of the Europeans, Reuters notes.
In response, European leaders gathered in Paris on Monday for an emergency meeting to work out a unified position and strategy after the Trump administration left them in the dark about its diplomatic offensive for immediate talks on Ukraine. They learned about it after a phone call last week between the US president and Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
European leaders agreed to invest more in defense and take the lead in providing guarantees for Ukraine's security.
“Everyone is aware that the moment requires urgent action“, said Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoff, who participated in the Paris meeting. “In such critical times for European security, we must continue to support Ukraine“.
“Europe will have to contribute to preserving any agreement (for peace), and in this sense, cooperation with the Americans is essential,“ said Schoff.
The meeting in Riyadh marks a significant change from Washington's previous policy under the administration of Democrat Joe Biden, which avoided any public contact with Moscow, basing itself on the conclusion that it did not really have a serious intention to stop the fighting.
Officials of the new government in Washington indicated that yesterday's talks were the first contact aimed at determining whether Russia was sincere in its requests or not.
However, the Kremlin indicated before the meeting that the discussions at the meeting would cover "the entire complex of Russian-American relations" and will pave the way for a settlement of the conflict in Ukraine and a meeting between Presidents Putin and Trump.
It remains unclear how Europe will interact with Washington after Trump stunned Ukraine and Europe by calling Putin, who has long been isolated from the West.
But the American decision has made Europeans realize that they will have to do more if they want to guarantee Kiev's security, Reuters added.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who announced before the Paris meeting that he was ready to send peacekeeping forces to Ukraine, said that American "support" was needed if Europe was to deploy troops on the ground as part of any European peacekeeping mission during a ceasefire between Moscow and Kiev.