European views will be taken into account and Ukraine will not be pressured into a deal, the US envoy for Ukraine and Russia told a group of reporters at NATO HQ.
Keith Kellogg’s two-day visit to Brussels comes amid growing unease among European allies that a future Ukraine peace deal would be struck over their and Kyiv’s heads, as neither of them is expected to participate in the US-Russia talks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, tomorrow.
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Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said over the weekend that Kyiv would not agree to a deal that would be detrimental to his country or that resulted from negotiations in which he didn’t participate.
Kellogg said “nobody” would impose decisions on Zelenskyy as the “elected leader of a sovereign nation” and the decision about striking a deal would ultimately be the Ukrainians’.
Trump’s Ukraine envoy is expected to travel to Kyiv tomorrow night for a three-day visit, where he is scheduled to meet with the Ukrainian leader. He will then return to Washington and continue a tour of NATO capitals in the next few weeks.
At the table
Asked by Euractiv about his comments made on stage in Munich that “Europeans would not be at the table,” Kellogg clarified that this would not mean European concerns would not be taken into account.
“If you believe there are going to be thirty-three people sitting at the same table – exactly the same table – during the discussion, in all probability, the answer is no, not at all,” Kellogg said.
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“If ‘at the table’ means that your views are heard, understood, transmitted, the answer is absolutely,” he said.
Washington sent a questionnaire to European capitals earlier last week to determine what resources they would be ready to contribute to a possible future peacekeeping force.
“Before any type of discussion and security guarantees is finalized, of course, those discussions are going to take place,” Kellogg said.
“Answers to those questions will be determined as you come up with the final process,” he added, throwing the ball back to the Europeans’ court.
Status concerns
Kellogg’s absence from the US negotiating team travelling to Riyadh raised questions over his leverage on Trump’s efforts to draw up a peace proposal – and how European input will find its way into them.
Responding to concerns about his status in the process, Kellogg said, “That doesn’t mean that the team is not fully synced.”
“They are going to come out of the Middle East, I will come out of Ukraine – we will go back to being synched up,” he said, adding he had a joint conference call with the negotiating team over the phone after Munich.
The team includes Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.
See the original report for Euractiv by Alexandra Brzozowski here.
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