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 for direct peace talks 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 Erdogan 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.
Russia ready for talks in Istanbul
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that the Russian delegation is ready for talks on Monday in Istanbul.
“Our delegation, led by Vladimir Medinsky, is ready to present this memorandum to the Ukrainian delegation and provide the necessary explanations during a second round of direct talks in Istanbul on Monday, June 2,” Lavrov said.
Medinsky, a Russian political scientist and former culture minister, led Russia’s negotiating team during the first round of talks on May 16.
US President Donald Trump has put pressure on both sides to broker an end to the three-year conflict.
Recalling the May 16 meeting in Istanbul, Lavrov said, “In those negotiations, we insisted on the abolition of all discriminatory laws in Ukraine, and we will continue to demand this in the upcoming talks as well.”
He warned that without addressing fundamental issues such as NATO’s expansion and Ukraine’s potential alliance membership, the talks would not succeed.
“Negotiations are better than war,” Lavrov said. “But in order to succeed, the root causes must be eliminated. NATO’s eastward expansion triggered the crisis in Ukraine and undermined security in Europe.”
Lavrov reaffirmed Moscow’s demands for Ukraine to maintain a neutral, non-aligned, and non-nuclear status – terms discussed in previous Istanbul talks in 2022. – Agencies
