OMM Newsroom
Ukraine’s chief negotiator Rustem Umerov said Wednesday that “huge progress” had been made in ongoing peace negotiations with Russia on issues of security and prosperity, Anadolu Agency reported.
Speaking at a joint news conference in Abu Dhabi after the latest round of US-mediated talks, Umerov thanked US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. He said discussions had taken place in different formats over the past year, including with European participation.
“There is a huge progress going on on the securities, prosperity issues, and we will be talking about this later on,” said Umerov, who is head of Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service. He did not give further details.
David Arakhamia, parliamentary leader of Ukraine’s ruling Servant of the People faction, described the trilateral talks over the past two days as “one of the toughest”. He expressed hope that an upcoming prisoner swap between Moscow and Kyiv, announced earlier by Kushner, would involve a “big” number of people.
Arakhamia said the sides were close to expanding negotiations from a trilateral to a multilateral format. He also cited “big progress” on other issues, which he said could not yet be disclosed.
“And I encourage you guys to visit Moscow and then come back to us to Dublin, and then … have a second session and … announce the date for the next session (of peace talks) as soon as possible, because I think that we have a good momentum to bring the solution before the new year comes,” Arakhamia said.
The Ukrainian officials spoke after two days of US-mediated trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi, which began Tuesday. The meetings were the first direct three-way peace talks since discussions in Geneva in February.
At the news conference, Kushner said he and Witkoff would travel to Moscow on Thursday to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin. He said they would “finalize the numbers” for a prisoner swap agreed following Tuesday and Wednesday’s negotiations.
