RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Feb 18, (AP): The top diplomats from Russia and the US met in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to begin talks on improving ties and negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat down with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the Diriyah Palace in Riyadh.

The meeting marks another pivotal step by the Trump administration to reverse US policy on isolating Russia and is meant to pave the way for a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump earlier this month upended US policy toward Ukraine and Russia by saying he and Putin had agreed to begin negotiations on ending the war.

Ukrainian officials aren’t taking part in the meeting, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday that his country won’t accept the outcome if Kyiv doesn’t take part. Rubio was accompanied by national security adviser Mike Waltz and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, while Lavrov sat next to Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov.

Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan and national security adviser Musaed al Alban joined for the start of the meeting but were expected to leave early in the talks. Ushakov said the talks would be "purely bilateral” and would not include Ukrainian officials. The talks mark a significant expansion of U.S.-Russian contacts nearly three years into a war that has seen ties fall to the lowest level in decades.

Lavrov and then-U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken talked briefly on the sidelines of a G-20 meeting in India nearly two years ago, and in the fall of 2022, US and Russian spymasters met in Turkey amid Washington’s concerns that Moscow could resort to nuclear weapons amid battlefield setbacks. The recent US diplomatic blitz on the war has sent Kyiv and key allies scrambling to ensure a seat at the table amid concerns that Washington and Moscow could press ahead with a deal that won’t be favorable to them.

France called an emergency meeting of European Union countries and the UK on Monday to decide how to respond. Ahead of the talks, Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund who the Kremlin said might join the meeting, underscored the importance of the meeting in comments to The Associated Press. "Good U.S.-Russia relations are very important for the whole world.