Washington, Feb 17 (UNI) Americans want Ukraine to return their investments in order to be comfortable with future spending, US National Security Adviser Michael Waltz has said.
"I can't think of anything that would make the American people more comfortable with future investments than if we were able to be in a partnership and have the American people made whole," he told Fox News in an interview aired Sunday.
Waltz argued that the European aid to Kiev came in the form of a loan backed by interest paid on Russian assets. He insisted that Americans, too, deserved to have "some type of payback" for the billions they had invested in Ukraine.
Waltz promised that the Europeans' opinion on the conflict would be taken into account during negotiations on Ukraine, although he admitted they might not like everything that will be said or done.
"Now, they may not like some of the sequencing that is going on in these negotiations, but I have to push back on any notion that they aren't being consulted. They absolutely are," he said.
Waltz said that the peace process will be led by US President Donald Trump, while long-term security guarantees should be provided by Europe.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump had a phone conversation on Wednesday, which lasted almost an hour and a half. They discussed issues related to the exchange of Russian and US citizens and the settlement of the conflict in Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Washington was Moscow's main counterpart in the talks on Ukraine. Trump suggested that he might meet with Putin face-to-face in Saudi Arabia.
UNI SPUTNIK GNK