Ukraine and Russia have agreed to sit down for talks, but peace deal remains long way off – Vance
US Vice President JD Vance claims that both Ukraine and Russia have agreed to talks, and that there is still no peace agreement because the sides remain too far apart on the details.
Vance said this in an interview with Forbes journalists, Censor.NET reports.
A very high mountain to climb
The journalists noted that Ukraine had agreed several times to come to the negotiating table while Russia had not, and asked why he was confident things would be different this time.
"I think both countries have agreed to come to the negotiating table. The reason we have not yet reached a peace agreement is that they are simply too far apart on the details of those negotiations," he replied.
According to Vance, Witkoff has revived the negotiating process and spoken with both Russian and Ukrainian leaders over the past few days.
"He is optimistic. The nature of these things is that you make an attempt, see how far you can get, and then come back to it again. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t," Vance added.
The vice president said he admired Witkoff, the entire diplomatic team and the presidents: "We are trying to do difficult things, knowing we have a very high mountain ahead of us. We are trying anyway."
Background
- The previous day, Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov said Russia was ready to resume trilateral talks with Ukraine and the US in November. He said a meeting could take place in the United Arab Emirates between 10 and 19 November.
- US presidential special envoy Steve Witkoff said his talks with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Oslo and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg had been constructive. He said negotiations to end the war would continue through trilateral meetings between the US, Russia and Ukraine at the technical level.
