ISTANBUL: Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called on Russia and Ukraine not to “shut the door” to dialogue ahead of an anticipated meeting between officials from both sides in Istanbul on Monday.
“We are in contact with Russia and Ukraine....We are telling them not to shut the door as long as it remains open,” the Turkish presidency on Thursday quoted him as saying.
Russia said Wednesday it wanted new talks with Ukraine in Istanbul next Monday to present its plan for a peace settlement, but Kyiv said it needed to see the proposal in advance for the meeting to yield results.
“During the course of each of our meetings, we have reminded our interlocuters that they should not pass up this opportunity,” Erdogan said, adding that: “extinguishing this huge fire in our region ... is a humanitarian duty.”
Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Monday, was expected to travel to Kyiv on Thursday ahead of a meeting with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Diplomatic efforts to end the three-year conflict have accelerated in recent months, but Moscow has repeatedly rejected calls for an unconditional ceasefire and shown no signs of scaling back its demands.
The two sides previously met in Istanbul on May 16, their first direct talks in over three years. That encounter failed to yield a breakthrough.
