US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday held talks with a Ukrainian delegation, as the administration of President Donald Trump pushes to end Russia's war on its neighbour on terms critics say are too accommodating for Moscow.
Mr Rubio told reporters after about four hours of talks that the session with the Ukrainian team in Florida was productive but there is still work to do in the search for a peace deal.
“It’s not just about the terms that ends fighting,” he said. “It’s about also the terms that set up Ukraine for long-term prosperity … I think we built on that today but there’s more work to be done."
Mr Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, is scheduled to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in the next few days.
Mr Rubio, Mr Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Mr Trump's son-in-law, represented the American side in the high-level talks, held at a sensitive time as Ukraine continues to defend against Russian forces that invaded in 2022 while dealing with a domestic corruption scandal.
Diplomats have focused on revisions to a proposed US-led plan that was developed in negotiations between Washington and Moscow. That plan has been criticised as being too weighted toward Russian demands.
In brief remarks before Sunday's meeting, Mr Rubio said the "end goal" went beyond finishing the fighting. “It’s also about securing an end to the war that leaves Ukraine sovereign and independent and with an opportunity at real prosperity," he said.
Washington has put forward a plan to end the more than three-year conflict. The US wants to finalise that with the approval of Moscow and Kyiv.
An initial 28-point proposal – drafted without input from Ukraine's European allies – would have forced Ukraine to withdraw from its eastern Donetsk region and led the US to recognise the Donetsk, Crimea and Lugansk regions as de facto Russian territories.
The US pared back the original draft after criticism from Kyiv and Europe, but the current contents remain unclear.
The Ukrainian delegation was led by Security Council Secretary Rustem Umerov. As talks began, he said officials were to discuss the future of Ukraine, as well as its security and ways to rebuild the country.
In a post on X, Mr Umerov said he was in “constant contact” with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as the meeting progressed.
“We have clear directives and priorities: safeguarding Ukrainian interests, ensuring substantive dialogue, and advancing on the basis of the progress achieved in Geneva,” he said on X.
The Florida talks are expected to build on negotiations a week ago in Geneva between US, Ukrainian and European officials.
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Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
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Sholto Byrnes on Myanmar politics
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MATCH INFO
Liverpool 4 (Salah (pen 4, 33', & pen 88', Van Dijk (20')
Leeds United 3 (Harrison 12', Bamford 30', Klich 66')
Man of the match Mohamed Salah (Liverpool)
