Lisa Nandy says Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a "legitimate leader", rejecting US president Donald Trump's description of the Ukrainian president as a "dictator". The culture secretary also warns "there can be no negotiations about Ukraine without Ukraine" - after Kyiv was excluded from US-Russia talks in Riyadh aimed at negotiating an end to the war. Report by Brooksl. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00I think the Prime Minister has been very clear about our view that President Zelensky was
00:04democratically elected by the Ukrainian people.
00:08The reason there haven't been elections in Ukraine recently is because of Russian aggression
00:12and the Prime Minister was pleased to be able to reaffirm our support for President Zelensky
00:17on the phone to him last night.
00:18We don't consider him to be a dictator, he is a democratically elected leader.
00:23We take a different view about that and we've made that very clear, that President Zelensky
00:28is a legitimate leader and furthermore that there can be no negotiations about Ukraine
00:35without Ukraine.
00:36There will be differing views, there are different views about this situation across Europe as
00:41well as in the United States, but we've been very encouraged by comments by the Secretary
00:46of State in the US, Marco Rubio, who talks about negotiations and nothing being off the
00:51table.
00:53The President has also been clear that he wants to see an end to this situation and
00:56that there is only a diplomatic solution.
00:59Next week when the Prime Minister travels to the United States, that's a private conversation
01:03that he'll be able to have with President Trump.
01:06But it's incredibly important that the US, Europe and the UK remain united in supporting
01:12Ukraine and making sure that we do pursue that diplomatic solution.
01:16Our experience of the Trump administration, both last time he was in office and this time,
01:21is that they are incredibly pragmatic and they want to get things done.
01:25That's been the mantra of the Trump administration since the moment that he became President-elect.
01:31We've got recent experience here in the UK of having to deal with very challenging situations
01:36where a lot of heat is cast upon the situation, where the temperature can get very high, through
01:42negotiating the Good Friday Agreement.
01:44It's a cause that's very close to the Prime Minister's heart.
01:47He worked in Northern Ireland for a long time as the Director of Public Prosecutions.
01:51We know that the only way through is to take the heat and the temperature down, to work
01:56closely and stick together with our allies and to bring all parties to the table.