Author: Daily Sabah With Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday the only way a breakthrough will happen in the efforts to end Russia’s war in Ukraine would be through direct talks between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin after Moscow sent a second-tier team to talks taking place in Türkiye. Rubio, who spoke to reporters in Antalya, said he would travel to Istanbul for meetings on Friday with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and a Ukrainian delegation, but said he did not have high expectations for the talks. “It’s my assessment that I don’t think we’re going to have…

Israel’s attacks in Gaza this week send the signal they are not interested in negotiating a ceasefire, Qatar’s prime minister told CNN in an interview on Wednesday. Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said a U.S.-backed humanitarian aid distribution plan for Gaza was unnecessary, stressing the United Nations should be allowed to deliver aid to the war-torn enclave.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy arrived in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday for a meeting with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, while in Istanbul Russian and Ukranian officials were separately expected to begin peace talks. Zelenskiy’s plane landed at Esenboğa Airport in Ankara and he was scheduled to meet Erdoğan at 1000 GMT.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he will probably return to Washington on Friday after a tour of three Gulf countries, although he said his destination is unknown as of yet. Trump earlier had hinted that he could stop in Istanbul for talks on Ukraine. “We’ll be leaving tomorrow, as you know. Almost destination unknown – because they’ll be getting calls ‘Could you be here? Could you be there?’ But probably going back to Washington, D.C. tomorrow,” Trump said before signing the guest book at the royal palace in Abu Dhabi during a trip to the United Arab…

The UAE is keen on continuing to work with the United States to achieve peace and stability in the region, President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan told U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday during a meeting in Abu Dhabi. Trump visited the UAE’s capital city on Thursday, the last stop of a tour of Gulf states.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio agreed during a meeting in southern Türkiye that efforts would continue to promote direct talks to end the war between Ukraine and Russia, a Turkish diplomatic source said on Thursday. Fidan and Rubio met on the sidelines of a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in the province of Antalya.

Israel’s attacks in Gaza this week send the signal they are not interested in negotiating a ceasefire, Qatar’s prime minister told CNN in an interview on Wednesday. Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said a U.S.-backed humanitarian aid distribution plan for Gaza was unnecessary, stressing the United Nations should be allowed to deliver aid to the war-torn enclave.

Vladimir Medinsky, the head of Russia’s delegation at peace talks on Ukraine in Türkiye, said on Thursday that Moscow’s aim was to secure a long-lasting peace with Kyiv by looking for common ground and removing the reasons for the conflict. Medinsky, who helped lead 2022 talks which collapsed, said Russia considered the planned talks in Istanbul to be a continuation of those failed 2022 talks. “We consider these negotiations as a continuation of the peace process in Istanbul, which, unfortunately, was interrupted by the Ukrainian side three years ago,” Medinsky told reporters in Istanbul. Kyiv says that the terms Russia…

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said after he spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday that Washington is troubled by the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Rubio, speaking to reporters in Antalya, Türkiye, said the U.S. was not insensitive to the suffering of people in Gaza, where no humanitarian assistance has been delivered since March 2.

The United States issued sanctions on Wednesday to target Iranian efforts to domestically manufacture components for ballistic missiles, the U.S. Treasury Department said. The sanctions target six individuals and 12 entities for what the Treasury Department said was “their involvement in efforts to help the Iranian regime domestically source the manufacturing of critical materials needed for Tehran’s ballistic missile program.” The Treasury Department alleges that those sanctioned, based in Iran and China, support various Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps sub-organizations that oversee the effort to develop carbon fiber materials needed to manufacture intercontinental ballistic missiles. The sanctions are the latest since…