Erdoğan calls on Russia, Ukraine to stay at negotiating table

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has called on Russia and Ukraine not to “shut the door” to dialogue ahead of an anticipated meeting between officials from both sides in İstanbul 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.

Moscow has offered to hold a second round of direct talks with Ukraine in İstanbul on June 2, where it wants to present a so-called “memorandum” outlining its conditions for a long-term peace settlement.

But Ukraine said the meeting would not yield results unless it saw a copy of the memorandum in advance, a proposal that the Kremlin dismissed.

“During the course of each of our meetings, we have reminded our interlocuters that they should not pass up this opportunity,” Erdoğan said, adding that “extinguishing this huge fire in our region … is a humanitarian duty.”

Diplomatic efforts to end the three-year conflict have gained pace in recent months, but Moscow has shown no signs of easing its bombardment of Ukraine while rebuffing calls for an immediate ceasefire.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who met with 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.

The two sides previously met in İstanbul on May 16, their first direct talks in over three years. That encounter failed to yield a breakthrough.

Russia said on Thursday that it was still waiting for Ukraine to say whether it would attend peace talks in İstanbul on Monday, after Kyiv demanded Moscow send its peace terms before agreeing to the meeting.

“As far as I know, no response has been received yet … we need to wait for a response from the Ukrainian side,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, calling Kyiv’s demand that Russia provide peace conditions up front “non-constructive.”

Ukraine said it had already submitted its peace terms to Russia and demanded Moscow do the same.

US President Donald Trump, who has been pushing for a peace deal, has become increasingly frustrated with Moscow’s apparent stalling and warned Wednesday he would determine in “about two weeks” whether Putin was serious about ending the fighting.

Moscow’s offensive, launched in February 2022, has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and the destruction of large parts of eastern and southern Ukraine.

© Agence France-Presse