FRESNOFORECLOSURE

US President Donald Trump insisted on Thursday that he's not disappointed with Russian President Vladimir Putin for not showing up for peace talks in Istanbul with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

"I didn't think it was possible for Putin to go if I'm not there," Trump told reporters at a meeting with business executives in Doha, Qatar, on the third day of his visit to the Middle East.

Trump said a meeting between him and Putin was crucial to breaking the deadlock.

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"I don't believe anything's going to happen whether you like it or not, until (Putin) and I get together," he said on Air Force One while traveling from Doha to Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.

"But we're going to have to get it solved because too many people are dying."

Peskov said Putin has no plans to meet with Trump in the coming days.

Russia and Ukraine are set to hold their first direct peace talks in three years, both countries said on Thursday, but hopes for a breakthrough remained dim after Putin spurned an offer by Zelenskyy to meet face-to-face in Turkey.

Zelenskyy said he is sending a team headed by his defence minister from the Turkish capital Ankara to Istanbul to meet a Russian delegation, even though Moscow's side doesn't include "anyone who actually makes decisions".

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Few had expected Putin to show up in Turkey, and his absence punctured any hope of significant progress in efforts to end the three-year-old war that was given a push in recent months by the Trump administration and Western European leaders.

It also raised the prospect of intensified international sanctions on Russia that have been threatened by the West.

The US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, met with the foreign ministers of Britain, France, Germany and Italy on the sidelines of a NATO meeting in Antalya, Turkey to discuss US "efforts to halt the senseless bloodshed in Ukraine", the State Department said.

Rubio also "emphasised that European leadership is critical for getting Russia and Ukraine to negotiate in good faith for a swift and durable peace settlement," it said.

The meeting comes as confusion has mounted over the status of the peace plan even as direct talks between Ukraine and Russia are supposed to be held this week in Turkey.

While it's not clear when they might meet, the Russian state news agency Tass reported the talks will go ahead on Friday, citing an unidentified source.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was due in Istanbul in Friday.

Zelenskyy, who heads Friday to Albania for a gathering of European officials, said he had decided to send the delegation to Istanbul to demonstrate to US President Donald Trump that Ukraine wants to end the fighting.

The Ukraine-Russia talks weren't the only peace talks the US President was asked about in Abu Dhabi.

Trump sidestepped a reporter's question on whether Israel has been an obstacle to peace talks in Gaza.

Instead, Trump said "we're working very hard on Gaza," which he described as "a territory of death and destruction for many years."

He repeated his proposal to "make it a freedom zone," and "let the United States get involved"

"I'd be proud to have the United States have it, take it, make it a freedom zone, let some good things happen," Trump said.

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