US, Ukrainian negotiators meet in Miami

Washington, Dec 6 (IANS) US and Ukrainian negotiators held the second day of talks in Miami, the US state of Florida, continuing discussions on the US-proposed peace plan for the Ukraine crisis, US and Ukrainian officials said Friday, according to a report from US online media outlet Axios.

The report said that the talks came after a roughly five-hour meeting that ended early Wednesday among US President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Xinhua news agency reported.

Witkoff and Kushner met Ukrainian officials for two hours on Thursday evening, and resumed talks on Friday morning. They briefed the Ukrainians in detail about their meeting with Putin and presented new ideas to bridge the gaps between the parties, according to the report.

The Thursday talks were "positive," and they are likely to continue into the weekend, a US official told Axios.

The Ukrainian delegation in Miami is headed by Rustem Umerov, Ukraine's secretary of National Security and Defence Council, and Andrii Hnatov, chief of the general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces, the report said.

Earlier in November US President Donald Trump said that he has directed his special envoy Steve Witkoff to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in hope of finalizing a peace deal on the Ukraine crisis.

"In the hopes of finalizing this Peace Plan, I have directed my Special Envoy Steve Witkoff to meet with President Putin in Moscow and, at the same time, Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll will be meeting with the Ukrainians," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

"The original 28-Point Peace Plan, which was drafted by the United States, has been fine-tuned, with additional input from both sides, and there are only a few remaining points of disagreement," Trump said, adding that his team has made "tremendous progress" over the past week.

Trump said he looks forward to hopefully meeting with Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky soon, but only when the peace deal is final or in its final stages.