Erdogan pitches himself as go-between, Zelenskyy signifies Russia wouldn’t be invited to the primary assembly.
Turkey is able to host a summit between Ukraine and Russia to finish the warfare, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan mentioned after talks along with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Istanbul.
Speaking after their assembly on Friday, Erdogan, who has balanced relations with Moscow and Kyiv all through the two-year warfare, spoke of “opportunities that Turkey can provide with its stance”.
“While we continue our solidarity with Ukraine, we will continue our work to end the war with a just peace on the basis of negotiations,” he mentioned.
Zelenskyy mentioned the talks had been “sincere and fruitful”, although he shunned alluding to the mooted peace summit in an announcement launched on X after the assembly.
Talks between Ukraine and Türkiye are all the time honest and fruitful. Today, we now have reached agreements on joint protection tasks each on the authorities degree and between firms.
I met with the Turkish protection business representatives. We are ready to maneuver rapidly to place… pic.twitter.com/mDpYDDEnwi
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) March 8, 2024
However, the Ukrainian chief, who’s on a mission to acquire extra munitions and weaponry from allies to halt his foe’s advance on the jap entrance, was cited by the Reuters information company as saying that Russia wouldn’t be invited to the primary assembly of the summit, attributable to be held in Switzerland.
Zelenskyy additionally thanked Erdogan for his efforts in negotiating the discharge of Ukrainian prisoners “held in Russian prisons and camps under extremely harsh and inhumane conditions”.
I’m grateful to President @RTErdogan for his efforts to launch our residents from Russian captivity. Thanks to Türkiye’s mediation, we now have achieved vital humanitarian outcomes. We are actually relying on additional efforts.
Today, I submitted an inventory of our Ukrainian residents,… pic.twitter.com/qFBW7AEDXh
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) March 8, 2024
Erdogan, who reiterated Turkey’s help for Ukraine’s “territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence”, mentioned he and Zelenskyy had mentioned port safety, security within the Black Sea, prisoner exchanges and meals safety.
Turkey’s strategic location on the Black Sea and its management of the Bosphorus Strait offers it a singular army, political and financial position within the battle.
Shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Turkey hosted failed ceasefire talks between Kyiv and Moscow.
“Both sides have now reached the limit of what they can achieve through war,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan mentioned this month.
“We think it’s time to start a dialogue towards a ceasefire.”
In July 2022, Ankara with the United Nations brokered the Black Sea Grain deal, essentially the most vital diplomatic settlement up to now reached between Kyiv and Moscow. But Moscow ditched the initiative a 12 months later, complaining that the phrases had been unfair.
Kyiv has since used an alternate transport route hugging the shoreline to keep away from contested worldwide waters.
The Erdogan-Zelenskyy assembly comes per week after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met his Turkish counterpart Fidan at a diplomatic discussion board in Antalya.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was set to go to Turkey final month, however postponed the journey, in response to Turkish and Russian media citing diplomatic sources. The Kremlin mentioned it’s rescheduling the go to.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/8/turkey-offers-to-host-russia-ukraine-peace-talks-as-erdogan-hosts-zelenskyy?traffic_source=rss
