US president Donald Trump has said the White House would “take a pass” on brokering a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine if there are no signs of immediate progress.
“Now if for some reason one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say, ‘you’re foolish, you’re fools, you’re horrible people, and we’re going to just take a pass,” Mr Trump told reporters at the White House.
“But hopefully we won’t have to do that,” he added.
The president’s comment came hours after US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said the White House may move on unless there are signs of progress.
Meanwhile, Ukraine said it had signed a preliminary agreement on a minerals deal with the US, and that a final accord could be reached by the end of next week.
