US envoys Witkoff and Kushner juggle 2 sets of crisis talks, raising questions on prospects of success

WASHINGTON/GENEVA/DUBAI - Even for a US president long fixated on deal-making, Mr Donald Trump’s assignment of his favourite envoys to juggle two sets of negotiations – the Iranian nuclear stand-off and Russia’s war in Ukraine – in a single day in Geneva has left many in the foreign policy world scratching their heads.

The shuttle diplomacy on Feb 17 by US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Mr Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has raised questions not only about whether they are overstretched and outmatched, but also about their serious prospects for resolving either of the twin crises, experts say.

Mr Trump, who has frequently boasted about having ended multiple wars and conflicts in the first year of his second four-year term, has made clear he is looking to add more international deals that he can tout in his quest for the Nobel Peace Prize.

But the high-stakes negotiations over the two long-running issues were arranged quickly, and the choice of Geneva as the setting for both was never clearly explained, except for the city’s long history of hosting international diplomacy.

“Trump seems more focused on quantity over quality instead of the difficult, detailed work of diplomacy,” said Mr Brett Bruen, a foreign policy adviser in the Obama administration who now heads the Global Situation Room strategic consultancy. “Tackling both issues at the same time in the same place doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

Iran was the opening act in a carefully choreographed diplomatic dance in Geneva, where talks took place under high security in two locations on different sides of the Swiss, French-speaking city.

After 3½ hours of indirect discussions between the US team and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi mediated by Oman, both sides indicated that some progress was made, but there was no suggestion that an agreement was imminent in the longstanding dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme.

As long as the diplomatic process continues, Mr Trump can keep expanding his massive military build-up near Iran, making clear that use of force remains on the table. That is likely to keep the Middle East on edge, with many fearing that US strikes could escalate into a wider regional war.

‘Overstretch’?

With barely a pause on Feb 17, the US delegates went straight from the Iran talks at Oman’s diplomatic mission to the five-star Intercontinental hotel for the first of two days of Russia-Ukraine negotiations over a war that Mr Trump, during the 2024 presidential campaign, had promised to end in a single day.

Expectations were low for a breakthrough in the latest round of talks to end Europe’s biggest war since World War II ended in 1945.

A regional official close to Iran’s leadership said the US team’s double agenda in Geneva reinforced doubts about whether Washington was sincere about either of the diplomatic efforts.

“The approach risks overstretch,” the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters. “It resembles an emergency room with two critically ill patients and a single doctor unable to give either case sustained attention, increasing the likelihood of failure.”

Dr Mohanad Haje-Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut said there was too much at stake in the Iran crisis for the US to handle diplomacy this way.

“Having a team of Witkoff and Kushner tasked with resolving all the world’s problems is, frankly, a shocking reality,” he said.

Some experts said the two, both from Mr Trump’s world of New York real estate development, lack the depth of knowledge and experience to go up against veteran negotiators like Mr Araqchi and their Russian interlocutors and that they were in over their heads in such complicated conflicts.

Absent from the Geneva meetings was US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Mr Trump’s top diplomat, who is known as a foreign policy wonk.

Asked for comment, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said Mr Trump and his team “have done more than anyone to bring both sides together to stop the killing and deliver a peace deal” in Ukraine. She denounced anonymous “critics” of the President’s approach but did not provide answers to Reuters’ specific questions for this story.

‘Envoy for everything’

Administration officials have long defended Mr Witkoff and Mr Kushner’s roles, citing their skills as deal makers, the trust Mr Trump puts in them, and the failings over the years of more traditional diplomatic approaches.

Mr Witkoff, a long-time Trump friend often called the “envoy for everything” due to his broad remit, played a key role in securing a ceasefire agreement in 2025 between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza war, though progress has stalled towards a more permanent resolution. His diplomatic efforts with Iran and Russia have had little success so far.

In Mr Trump’s first term, Mr Kushner spearheaded the Abraham Accords, under which several Arab states forged landmark diplomatic relations with Israel. But the pact has not advanced much since Mr Trump returned to office nearly 13 months ago.

Mr Kushner and Mr Witkoff’s ability to handle their latest diplomatic tasks has been undercut by Mr Trump’s stripping down of the government’s foreign policy apparatus, both at the State Department and the National Security Council, where many veterans were sent packing, some analysts say.

“We’ve seen a hollowing-out of our diplomatic bench,” said former Obama adviser Mr Bruen. “So there’s a question of whether we still have the right people to work on these big issues.” REUTERS