US envoys 'confident' as Kyiv talks raise hopes for three-way meeting

We've always been treated respectfully by President Putin and his team. Relationships are critical in terms of solving conflicts like this. And if you don't have relationships with both sides, and you have poor communication, then you probably have very, very little chance of getting to a peaceful resolution. We came to see President Putin first. We needed to hear where he stood. We had good, concrete conversation with him, which we advised President Zelensky and his team about. Both sides have to come to a resolution here. And my job and Jared's job together is to bring the parties together, to narrow the issues between them, to create good communication channels. And hopefully we began that process constructively in the last 48 hours. And we're confident that there'll be a good resolution here. You never know with any deal, right? So it's not done till it's done. And it could happen quickly. It could happen slowly, but it's not going to happen if you don't have these meetings and these dialogues. And so, again, we're doing a lot of work behind the scenes to try and create the right conditions for it. It's a very, very hard problem, but we're going to try. And I think if we can achieve that, it'd be an incredible thing. It doesn't mean that we will achieve it, but it's an effort that's very important to try, and so we're going to continue to do it. You know, we have to start with a first principles idea of what the best outcome could be and what benefits all people. You know, President Trump comes from the business world, which in the business world, you think about things in the context of win-win, you know, how do you create opportunities for both sides to do what's in their interest? A war is negative some, you know, everyone loses from war, whereas, you know, business and peace is positive some, and hopefully you can find big benefits from that in a big way.