President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he was ready to host a Russia-Ukraine peace summit if necessary but reiterated his support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity, following a meeting on Friday with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky in Istanbul.
“We are ready to host a peace summit in which Russia will participate,” declared the head of state, who spoke to the press alongside the Ukrainian president.
Mr. Erdogan reiterated his “support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of [son] strategic ally, Ukraine.
“While continuing our solidarity with Ukraine, we will continue to work to end the war and in favor of a just and negotiated peace,” he insisted.
Mr. Zelensky expressed his “gratitude” to his Turkish counterpart, who “from the beginning […] recognized our territorial integrity and sovereignty, including regarding the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea” annexed by Moscow in 2014.
“Any proposal for the settlement of this war must start from the formula proposed by the country which defends its territory and its people,” he added. “We want a just peace.”
Ukraine has set the withdrawal of Russian troops from its territory as a precondition for talks with Moscow.
Furthermore, Mr. Zelensky said he had “transmitted a list of Ukrainian citizens, in particular Crimean Tatars, who are repressed by Russia in the occupied territories and detained in Russian prisons and camps in extremely cruel and inhumane conditions”.
NATO member Turkey has sought to maintain good relations with both Moscow and kyiv since Russia’s large-scale attack on Ukraine two years ago. Mr. Erdogan presents himself as an intermediary between the belligerents.
In the first weeks of the war, Turkey hosted peace talks between Moscow and kyiv, which failed. She hopes to be able to revive them.
“Both parties have reached the limit of what they can obtain through war,” said Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in early March, advocating the establishment of “a dialogue with a view to a cease-fire.” fire “.
Ties with Russia
Turkey’s strategic position in the Black Sea and its control of the Bosphorus Strait give it a unique military, political and economic role in the conflict.
In July 2022, Ankara participated with the UN in negotiating an agreement between Moscow and kyiv on the export of Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea, from which Russia ultimately withdrew a year later.
kyiv has since launched another export route that runs along the coast and avoids disputed international waters.
Turkey, on the other hand, angered Moscow last year by allowing commanders of the ultranationalist Azov regiment, Moscow’s bête noire, to return to Ukraine, despite an agreement with Russia providing for them to stay there until the end of hostilities.
During his visit, Mr. Zelensky visited Friday “shipyards where corvettes are built for [sa] navy” and was to meet with Turkish defense contractors, according to the Ukrainian presidency.
The meeting between MM. Zelensky and Erdogan comes a week after the visit to Turkey of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who spoke with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, at a diplomatic forum in Antalya.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is also due to visit Turkey on a date that has not yet been set.
Ties between Turkey and Russia have aroused tension in the West, who accuse Ankara of facilitating Moscow’s circumvention of sanctions by exporting certain goods to Russia.
The United States has sanctioned several Turkish companies for helping Moscow buy goods that could be used by its armed forces.
Visiting Vilnius, the head of Ukrainian diplomacy for his part warned Westerners against the “dropper aid” provided to kyiv.
“The strategy of providing aid to Ukraine in dribs and drabs no longer works,” Dmytro Kouleba said during a visit to Vilnius.
“It’s over and, if things continue as they are now, it will not end well for all of us,” he added after a meeting with his French, Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian.
He called for an “unrestricted and timely supply of weapons and ammunition to ensure that Ukraine defeats Russia.”
In Ukraine, the Ukrainian governor of the Kharkiv region, Oleg Synegoubov, deplored on Telegram the death of at least two people in the attack on their car by a Russian army drone.
In Russia, two people were killed and another “seriously injured” in a Ukrainian drone strike in the Belgorod region, according to Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, the area being regularly targeted by this type of attack.
With Victoria Lukovenko in Kharkiv, Ukraine