WASHINGTON, Feb 16, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - A senior team from US President Donald 
Trump's administration will start talks in Saudi Arabia with Russian and 
Ukrainian negotiators on ending the Ukraine war, US officials said Saturday.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House National Security Advisor Mike 
Waltz and Trump's Middle East negotiator Steve Witkoff will head to Saudi for 
the talks, the officials said.

The move comes just days after Trump announced that he had spoken to Russian 
President Vladimir Putin for the first time since returning to office, and 
that they had agreed to start talks on a ceasefire in Ukraine.

The officials gave no further details of when the meetings would happen or 
when the officials would travel.

But Rubio had already been due to visit Saudi Arabia as part his first tour 
of the Middle East, which began on Saturday when he arrived in Israel, an AFP 
journalist reported.

Rubio earlier Saturday had a telephone call with his Russian counterpart 
Sergei Lavrov, in which he "reaffirmed President Trump's commitment to 
finding an end to the conflict in Ukraine," the State Department said.

Former property developer Witkoff was heavily involved in a prisoner exchange 
deal earlier this week that paved the way for the call between Trump and 
Putin.

Witkoff even traveled to Moscow to bring home US detainee Marc Fogel.

In a social media post announcing the Putin call earlier this week, Trump had 
said he had tasked Rubio, Waltz, Witkoff and CIA chief John Ratcliffe to 
immediately get to work on a deal with Russia to end the Ukraine war.

Kyiv and its European allies were however blindsided by Trump's sudden move 
to start negotiations with Russia.

Both fear being frozen out of negotiations on Ukraine's future after the 
biggest land invasion in Europe since World War II.