US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House envoy Steve Witkoff will this week travel to Europe for talks about ending the Russia-Ukraine war and laying the groundwork for a nuclear deal with Iran.
The State Department said in a statement that the two officials are scheduled to meet with European counterparts in Paris on Wednesday and Thursday to discuss the Ukraine war.
The top US diplomat is said to meeting his French counterpart Jean-Noel Barrot on Thursday and they will discuss the war in Ukraine, the situation in the Middle East and the Iran nuclear deal.
Witkoff will then attend a meeting in Rome in the presence of Iranian counterparts.
The diplomatic blitz comes as the Trump's administration has grown increasingly frustrated by the lack of progress toward a Ukraine peace deal.
The President and his advisors have lamented Russia's obstinacy, while Trump himself has continued to blame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for Russia's expanded invasion of Ukraine, which started in 2022.
The latest round of meetings also comes following a nascent push by the administration to explore whether Washington and Tehran can ink a lasting deal regarding the latter's nuclear program.
Recall that Iran and the US held indirect talks in Oman last weekend, which both sides described as positive, though they acknowledged that any potential deal remains distant.
The US president said on Monday that he was willing to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities if a deal was not reached.
Trump, on Tuesday, he held a meeting with top national security advisers at the White House focused on Iran's nuclear programne.
The US leader has restored a “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran since February, after he ditched a 2015 nuclear pact between Iran and six world powers during his first term and reimposed crippling sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Iran's nuclear program has reportedly leaped forward since then.
Both countries held indirect talks during former President Joe Biden's term but made little or no progress.
