Turkey’s foreign minister said on Monday that Ankara backed a US initiative to end the Ukraine-Russia conflict but that talks should involve both warring parties, Agence France-Presse reported.
“We attach great importance to the new US initiative as a result-oriented approach. We believe that a solution can be reached through negotiations in which both sides participate,” Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told a news conference with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Ankara.
Lavrov’s visit comes on the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a week after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky travelled to the Turkish capital.
Lavrov said Russia is ready for negotiations on the Ukraine war but will only stop fighting when a peace settlement “suits” Moscow.
“We will stop hostilities only when these negotiations produce a firm and sustainable result that suits the Russian Federation,” he said.
Russian and US officials held talks in Saudi Arabia in a meeting denounced by Zelensky, who fears an agreement reached without him.
Fidan, whose country hosted talks between Ukraine and Russia during the start of the war, said Turkey was ready to take any step that would help bring peace.
“Turkey is always prepared to assume any facilitating or accelerating role… Our goal is to end this devastating war as soon as possible and to heal the wounds in the region,” he said.
NATO member Turkey has sought to maintain good relations with its warring Black Sea neighbors, with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pitching himself as a key go-between and possible peacemaker between the two.
Ankara has provided drones for Ukraine but shied away from Western-led sanctions on Moscow.
Lavrov met with Erdoğan later in the day.