VILNIUS, January 25 (Reuters) – President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that the U.S. document on security guarantees in Ukraine was fully ready and Kyiv was awaiting the time and place for signing, indicating some progress in weekend talks with Russia in Abu Dhabi.
“For us, security guarantees are first of all security guarantees from the United States. The document is 100 percent ready and we are waiting for our partners to confirm the date and place for signing it,” Zelensky told a news conference during a visit to the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.
“The document will then be sent to the U.S. Congress and the Ukrainian Parliament for approval,” he said.
Ukrainian and Russian negotiators held their first trilateral meeting in Abu Dhabi on Friday and Saturday, including U.S. mediators, to discuss Washington’s framework for ending nearly four years of war, but no agreement was reached.
However, a U.S. official told reporters immediately after the weekend talks that both Moscow and Kiev expressed a willingness for further dialogue, with more discussions expected to take place next Sunday in Abu Dhabi.
“The 20-point (U.S.) plan and problematic issues are being discussed (in Abu Dhabi). There were a lot of problematic issues, but now there are fewer,” Zelensky said.
He said Moscow wanted to do everything possible to get Ukraine to give up areas in the east that it had been unable to capture since a full-scale invasion sparked the war. But he said Kyiv had not changed its position that Ukraine’s territorial integrity must be maintained.
“Ukraine and Russia are two fundamentally different positions. Americans are working hard to find a compromise,” Zelensky said, adding that all parties, including the Americans, must be prepared to compromise.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk in Kiev and Andrius Sytas in Vilnius; Editing by Mark Heinrich)