Kremlin says a Putin-Trump meeting on Ukraine is essential but needs advance preparation and must yield results

MOSCOW (Reuters) -The Kremlin said on Friday that a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump was essential to make progress on Ukraine and other issues, but needed preparation and had to yield results when it happened.

Russian and Ukrainian negotiators were meeting in Istanbul on Friday in their first direct peace talks in more than three years, under pressure from Trump to end Europe's deadliest conflict since World War Two.

Wrapping up his Gulf tour earlier on Friday, Trump said he would meet Putin "as soon as we can set it up", a day after saying that "nothing's going to happen until Putin and I get together".

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also said on Thursday that the only way a breakthrough in the efforts to end Russia's war in Ukraine would happen would be through direct talks between Trump and Putin.

Asked about Rubio's comments, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday: "There is no doubt that contacts between President Putin and Trump are important in the context of the Ukrainian negotiations. We, of course, agree with this thesis. The importance of this cannot be overstated."

Putin and Trump have spoken by phone, but not met since Trump returned to the White House in January, despite both leaders expressing their desire for face-to-face talks.

Peskov said Moscow wanted a Putin-Trump summit, but that such a meeting needed considerable advance preparation to ensure it was a success.

"A summit must be set up. And it must be results-oriented because a summit is always preceded by expert negotiations, consultations, and long and intense preparations, especially if we are talking about a summit between the presidents of the Russian Federation and the United States of America," he said.

"...Such a meeting is certainly necessary. It is necessary both primarily from the point of view of bilateral Russian-U.S. relations and from the point of view of having a serious conversation at the highest level about international affairs and on regional problems, including, of course, about the crisis around Ukraine," Peskov added.

Commenting on the Istanbul talks, Peskov said that the Russian negotiating team was in constant communication with Moscow and that Putin, who was holding a meeting of his Security Council on Friday, was receiving real-time updates.

Asked about a Bloomberg report that Washington was proposing to revive the NATO-Russia Council, a forum for military and political dialogue whose work was suspended after Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022, Peskov said there had been no substantive proposals on the subject.

"It is difficult to talk about the resumption of any kind of partnership or any kind of dialogue at a time when NATO, when the North Atlantic Alliance, is practically at war with the Russian Federation," said Peskov.

"Although all issues related to security and stability on the European continent must of course be discussed. And we need to start doing this as soon as possible."

(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Andrew Osborn, Maxim Rodionov and Anastasia Teterevleva; Editing by Alex Richardson)