Photo: AA/File
In a phone call with President Vladimir Putin of Russia, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan urged him to meet with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in İstanbul, according to the Presidency Communications Directorate.
Continuing the "positive momentum" in the last month's talks between delegations from the two countries would benefit all sides, said the president.
He also expressed his willingness to "elevate the İstanbul process" and host a meeting of the Ukrainian and Russian leaders, which he called "an important threshold for negotiations between Russia and Ukraine," according to the statement.
Delegations from Russia and Ukraine held their first meeting in İstanbul on March 29.
After the meeting, a negotiator from Ukraine said Kyiv would like Turkey to be among the countries that will be guarantors in any deal with Moscow.
Russia's invasion of UkraineOn February 24, explosions were reported in several Ukrainian provinces, including the capital Kyiv, after Russia's President Vladimir Putin announced a 'special military operation' in the Donbas region. Tensions had started escalating late last year when Ukraine, the US and its allies accused Russia of amassing tens of thousands of troops on the border with Ukraine. They claimed Russia was preparing to invade its western neighbor, which was consistently rejected by Moscow. Defying threats of sanctions by the West, Moscow officially recognized Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states in late February, followed by the start of the invasion of Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin said the operation aims to protect people "subjected to genocide" by Kyiv and to "demilitarize and de-Nazify" Ukraine, while calling on the Ukrainian army to lay down its arms. |
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