ISTANBUL – This week’s talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul was an “extremely important” step towards ending the war, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in remarks published on Saturday. “Bringing together the delegations of the two countries in Istanbul is extremely important for ending the war and the establishment of peace in the region,” he told reporters on the plane back from a European summit in Albania. His remarks came after the two sides met on Friday for their first direct talks in more than three years, in a meeting hosted by Turkey.
Although the discussion, which lasted just over 90 minutes, did not result in a truce, the parties did agree on a large-scale prisoner exchange and discussed a potential meeting between Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
“To end the war, weapons must be silenced and diplomacy must speak,” said Erdogan, who held talks with Zelensky in Ankara ahead of the summit. “This opportunity must not be missed. This war cannot be ended with conflict and weapons.” After the meeting, Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, who headed his country’s delegation, said the “next step” would be a meeting between Zelensky and Putin.
“We consider it possible, but only as a result of the work and upon achieving certain results in the form of an agreement between the two sides,” the Kremlin’s spokesman told journalists on Saturday. Russia’s top negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky said Moscow and Kyiv would “present their vision of a possible future ceasefire”, without saying when.
