US envoy says hopes Putin-Trump phone call will be successful

US special presidential envoy Steve Witkoff has said that he hopes that the upcoming phone call between the US and Russian presidents, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, will be successful and will help promote talks between Russia and Ukraine, Report informs.

"I believe that the president is going to have a successful call with Vladimir Putin," he told ABC News, adding that the US believes that the direct talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul had yielded good results.

"I think in a negotiation like this, people take positions," Witkoff said. "The art here is to narrow that, you know, wide berth between the parties. And I think to some extent we've done that. To some extent each party is staking out their positions. And I think Monday will go a long way towards identifying where we are and how we complete this negotiation."