ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Wednesday with the chief of the United Arab Emirates, wrapping up an abroad journey that noticed the highest-level outreach between the US and Russia since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Rubio’s discuss with Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, additionally the ruler of Abu Dhabi, comes because the U.S. additionally tries to proceed a shaky ceasefire within the Gaza Strip between Israel and the militant Hamas group.
The UAE, which diplomatically acknowledged Israel in 2020 throughout President Donald Trump’s first time period, additionally has been key in mediating prisoner swaps between Russia and Ukraine.
There was no rapid readout on what Rubio, Sheikh Mohammed and Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s overseas minister, mentioned of their roughly 30-minute assembly. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with Sheikh Mohammed on Monday.
Each the UAE and Saudi Arabia have been mentioned as doable websites for peace talks to finish the warfare in Ukraine, which marks its third anniversary on Monday. Saudi Arabia additionally has been talked about because the doable venue for a gathering between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, offering a possible diplomatic boon to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the dominion’s de facto ruler.
The leaders met Rubio at an Abu Dhabi conference heart that is internet hosting the biennial Worldwide Protection Exhibition and Convention this week, the place each Ukraine and Russia have displayed weapons — whilst Moscow faces Western sanctions over the warfare.
Russian cash continues to flood into Dubai’s booming actual property market. Every day flights between the Emirates and Moscow present a lifeline for each these fleeing conscription and the Russian elite. Ukrainians as properly have fled to the Emirates, an autocratically dominated federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula.
Rubio additionally visited Abu Dhabi’s Abrahamic Household Home, which homes a Catholic church, a Jewish synagogue and an Islamic mosque.
—Related Press author Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.
