Kyiv (Ukraine) (AFP) - Kyiv said Wednesday that it had made progress in long-running and fraught talks with Washington over a minerals deal intended to secure further US support for Ukraine.

Kyiv and Washington had planned to sign a deal on extracting Ukraine’s strategic minerals, until a clash between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky temporarily derailed work on the agreement.

“Our technical teams have worked very thoroughly together on the agreement, and there is significant progress,” Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko wrote on social media.

She said that the Ukrainian side had “adjusted several items within the draft agreement” and that the two sides would sign a “memorandum of intent” soon. The Ukrainian parliament would vote on any final accord, she added.

“It will create opportunities for investment and development in Ukraine and establish conditions for tangible economic growth for both Ukraine and the United States,” Svyrydenko said.

A senior official with knowledge of the talks earlier said talks were moving forward “quite fast”.

Trump wants the deal – designed to give the US royalty payments on profits from Ukrainian mining of resources and rare minerals – as compensation for aid given to Ukraine by his predecessor, Joe Biden.

The source told AFP that newer drafts of the accord appeared not to recognise US aid as a debt owed by Ukraine.

That assessment echoed an earlier report from Bloomberg News that said Washington had eased a demand that Kyiv pay back aid delivered since Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022.

It reported that US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had said in Argentina on Monday that a deal could be signed as early as “this week”.