US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with top Turkish and Ukrainian officials in İstanbul Friday, ahead of the first direct Russia-Ukraine talks in three years, officials on both sides said.
Rubio had on Thursday played down hope of progress at the meeting, saying “we don’t have high expectations,” but has nonetheless flown in to throw his weight behind the effort.
After landing in Turkey’s largest city, Rubio went straight into talks at Dolmabahçe Palace with his Turkish and Ukrainian counterparts, Hakan Fidan and Andriy Sybiga, respectively.
Also present at the meeting were Washington’s envoy to Turkey Tom Barrack and the US envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg as well as Ukraine’s presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, a Turkish foreign ministry source said.
Official photos from the meeting showed that Turkey’s spy chief Ibrahim Kalın was also present as was its former Moscow envoy, Mehmet Samsar.
Rubio himself was not expected to join the peace talks.
A source at Turkey’s foreign ministry had initially said the Russia-Ukraine talks would begin at 0930 GMT, although other officials said the exact timings appeared to be in flux.
Also ahead of the talks, Michael Anton, the State Department head of policy planning, was to hold a meeting with the Russian delegation at Dolmabahçe, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said.
Zelensky sent a pared-down team to the İstanbul talks after Russia showed up with a relatively low-level delegation.
Neither Sybiga nor Yermak are part of the Ukrainian delegation to the talks, which will be led by Defense Minister Rustem Umerov.
The Russian side is headed by Vladimir Medinsky, a hawkish adviser to Putin who has questioned Ukraine’s right to exist and led failed talks at the start of the war.