Russian diplomats are meeting their U.S. counterparts in Istanbul for talks on normalizing diplomatic missions, three years after the Biden administration withdrew U.S. Embassy staff from Russia as Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine. A U.S. Embassy official in Turkey said Ukraine is not on the agenda at the talks. The Istanbul meeting comes ahead of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s trip to Washington, D.C., where he’s due to meet President Trump at the White House Friday to sign an agreement giving the U.S. access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals and other resources. On Wednesday, Trump refused to commit to significant security guarantees as part of the deal.

President Donald Trump: “Well, I’m not going to make security guarantees, beyond — very much. We’re going to have Europe do that.”

Following Trump’s remarks, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer warned Russia could reinvade Ukraine unless the U.S. commits to security guarantees. Starmer is in Washington today for talks at the White House, where he’s expected to ask Trump to commit to a British and French-led peacekeeping force for a postwar Ukraine. In Kyiv, President Zelensky said a draft agreement had restored some language on future security guarantees.

President Volodymyr Zelensky: “Of course, this agreement is about economics. But I asked for there to be at least an understanding that we are seeing things the same way, that all of it is part of future security guarantees. So, even in the framework agreement, I wanted for there to be at least a sentence: security guarantees for Ukraine. As far as I was briefed by the government officials, this sentence is there now.”