GENEVA: Washington and Kyiv said Sunday that any eventual deal to halt the war with Russia must fully uphold Ukraine\u2019s sovereignty, after \u201cconstructive\u201d talks between US, Ukrainian and European officials in Geneva.<\/p>\n
After a day of meetings that kicked off based on a US proposal that was criticized as being in Russia\u2019s favor, negotiators have drafted \u201can updated and refined peace framework,\u201d a US-Ukraine joint statement said.<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump had given Ukraine until November 27 to approve his plan to end the nearly four-year conflict, which began after Russia launched a full-scale invasion.<\/p>\n
But Kyiv was seeking changes to the draft that accepted a range of Russia\u2019s hard-line demands, with the 28-point plan requiring the invaded country to cede territory, cut its army and pledge never to join NATO.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe talks were constructive, focused, and respectful, underscoring the shared commitment to achieving a just and lasting peace,\u201d the joint statement said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey reaffirmed that any future agreement must fully uphold Ukraine\u2019s sovereignty and deliver a sustainable and just peace,\u201d it said, noting \u201cmeaningful progress.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both sides pledged to keep working on joint proposals \u201cin the coming days.\u201d<\/p>\n
But even as the White House said in a separate statement that the talks marked \u201ca \u201csignificant step forward,\u201d a Russian drone strike on the major Ukrainian city of Kharkiv killed four people, its mayor said.<\/p>\n
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio boasted \u201ctremendous\u201d progress after a day of meetings, while the head of Ukraine\u2019s delegation Andriy Yermak also told reporters the sides had made \u201cvery good progress.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rubio, whose delegation included Trump\u2019s son-in-law Jared Kushner and diplomatic envoy Steve Witkoff, told reporters that the work to narrow the areas of disagreement had advanced \u201cin a very substantial way.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI can tell you that the items that remain open are not insurmountable,\u201d he said, adding \u201cI honestly believe we\u2019ll get there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rubio stressed that any final agreement would \u201chave to be agreed upon by the presidents, and there are a couple issues that we need to continue to work on\u201d before trying to bring onboard the Kremlin, which welcomed the original proposal.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, the Russians get a vote.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
GENEVA: Washington and Kyiv said Sunday that any eventual deal to halt the war with Russia must fully uphold Ukraine\u2019s sovereignty, after \u201cconstructive\u201d talks between US, Ukrainian and European officials in Geneva. After a day of meetings that kicked off based on a US proposal that was criticized as being in Russia\u2019s favor, negotiators have …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":90067,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90047"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90068,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90047\/revisions\/90068"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}