A long tête-à-tête with Vladimir Putin, without witnesses: Steve Witkoff benefited from a rare privilege during his trip to Moscow, on February 11. Primary objective of the trip, carried out on board his private plane: bringing Marc Fogel, American teacher detained in Russia. “The meeting ended, I looked at my watch and it was almost three and a half hours that we were there, Donald Trump's special envoy said later on the CBS channel. This suggests, I hope, that many good things have been done. »»
Steve Witkoff was to participate, Tuesday, March 11 in Saudi Arabia, in discussions with Ukrainian negotiators dispatched by Volodymyr Zelensky, to set the frame of a cease-fire. But taken by his other file, that of the hostages in the hands of Hamas, he will be at the same time in Qatar, leaving the conduct of the discussions to the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, and to the National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz. “He's a man occupied these days”noted Marco Rubio on the plane. The promotion of Steve Witkoff says a lot about the transactional diplomacy wanted by Donald Trump. The latter first appointed him as a special envoy for the Middle East-a place occupied during the first mandate (2017-2021) by the president of the president, Jared Kushner-before also involving it in the Ukrainian file.
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Source: Lemonde