President Donald Trump will leave his attempt to mediate a peace agreement with the Russian-Ukraine within days, unless there is a clear indication that he can make a deal, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday.
“We are not going to continue this effort for weeks and months. So we need to make a quick decision right now. We are talking about the issue of a few days whether this is viable in the coming weeks,” Rubio said in Paris after meeting European and Ukrainian leaders.
“The President feels very strongly about it. He has devoted a lot of time and energy to it… This is important, but there are many other very important things worthy of attention.”
Rubio’s warning came amid signs of progress in US discussions with Ukraine.
Trump said Thursday that he expects to sign a contract with Kiev next week, providing the US with access to Ukrainian minerals.
Attempts to sign a mineral agreement in February fell apart after Ukrainian President Voldy Mie Zelensky clashed with Vice President J.D. Vance in his oval office with Trump.
After consultations in Paris on Thursday, Rubio, the first substantive, high-level, face-to-face talk on Trump’s promotion of peace, including European powers, said the US peace framework had received a “reception of encouragement.”
Zelensky’s office is called The Talks Constructive and Posise.
Rubio’s comments on Friday reinforce the underlined White House frustration over the lack of push progress to resolve an increasing list of geopolitical challenges.
Rubio spoke with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov after Paris spoke, saying he told him they were constructive and also explained to him “some elements of the framework of US peace.”
Without going further into more detail, Rubio said the issue of US security guarantees was announced as part of the deal in consultations in Paris.
He said security assurance is an issue that “we can fix in a way that is acceptable to everyone,” but “there is a major challenge that requires us to know whether it is possible in the short term.”
He said that while it was clear that it would be difficult to strike a peace agreement, there were signs that he could do it right away.
“No one says that this can be done in 12 hours, but if we can get a move within the period we have in mind, we’d like to see how far it is and whether we can even narrow down those differences,” he said.
Neither the French presidency nor the foreign ministry immediately returned requests for comment.
