Kuala Lumpur [Malaysia], July 11 : US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that he echoed US President Donald Trump's "disappointment and frustration" at the lack of progress in peace talks during his meeting with Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov and expressed America's willingness to engage.
Speaking to reporters in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday after his meeting with Lavrov, Rubio stated that the US' strategy is to continue engaging all parties involved in finding an outcome to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Rubio described his talks with Lavrov as "frank and important."
When asked about his message to Lavrov during the meeting, he said, "Our strategy is to continue to engage all the parties that are involved in finding an outcome to this conflict. We will engage anytime that we have an opportunity to do so, like we did today. I echoed what the President said - both the disappointment and frustration at the lack of progress in peace talks or in a path forward. So, we'll continue to engage."
"We shared some ideas and comments, which I'll take back to Washington as early as this evening in terms of calls and reflected, and perhaps there's something to build on there. But, it was a frank conversation. It was an important one. We had it, and we talked about some other items as well unrelated to the war in Ukraine, but that was the - obviously, the first and foremost topic that we discussed. And look, the President's been pretty clear. He's disappointed and frustrated that there's not been more flexibility on the Russian side to bring about an end to this conflict. We hope that can change, and we're going to continue to stay involved where we see opportunities to make a difference," he added.
Marco Rubio met Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday.
When asked about the concrete ideas presented during the meeting on how the conflict can be ended and Russia's response to it, Rubio responded, "These things are best negotiated, I don't want to in private, and that's how these things generally work. There were some ideas exchanged today, some viewpoints that they expressed to us that I'll take back to the President for his consideration, and hopefully it will lead to something. I don't want to over-promise something. Again, as I said, this is a conflict that's been going on now for over three years, and as has already been pointed out by one of the questions here, we've seen an acceleration of attacks. I think it's the probably the largest drone attack in a city close to the Polish border, actually. So, it's a pretty deep strike."
"And again, I mean, it's every time you see this in the headlines and people die, it reminds you of why the President wants this war to end. As he has said from the beginning, his number one interest here is to stop people from dying and the destruction that's ongoing every single day. They're going to be having a conference, maybe it starts today, if I'm not mistaken about reconstruction and the rebuilding of Ukraine. Every time one of these strikes is launched, the price of reconstruction goes up, right? There's also the destruction of the country's capabilities, the country's economic capabilities, that has to be added to this," he added.
Rubio noted that Trump does not like wars and considers wars a "waste of money and lives" and he wants them to end. He stated that Trump is going to everything he can within his power to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
He said, "The loss of life is something of grave interest - of great interest to the President. It's important to note that since January of this year, as an example just to give you, on the Russian side, they've lost 100,000 soldiers - dead - not injured... And on the Ukrainian side, the numbers are less but still very significant. And so that's - the President doesn't like wars. He thinks wars are a waste of money and a waste of lives, and he wants them to end. And he's going to do everything he can within his power to end this war and any other war he has a chance to end, as you've seen in the past."
"And so, we're going to continue to work at it. We understand that these things take time and patience, but obviously we're also frustrated that more progress has not been made. And hopefully, based on today and in the days to come, we'll have more clarity about what exactly the Russian position and priorities are in this regard, and can begin to make some progress. But it's been difficult, as you've seen," he added.
The meeting between Rubio and Lavrov comes just days after Trump expressed frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin for not engaging in peace talks regarding the Ukraine conflict.
On July 3, Trump said that he made "no progress" during his call with Putin in brokering a potential ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Speaking to reporters, Trump stated that over their phone call, he and Putin discussed a lot of things, including Iran and the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
"We had a call. It was a pretty long call. We talked about a lot of things, including Iran, and we also talked about, as you know, the war with Ukraine. I'm not happy about that," Trump said.
Asked whether any progress was made on potential deal to end the conflict in Ukraine , Trump responded, "No. I didn't make any progress with him today at all."