Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan’s meeting with the Russian delegation, headed by Presidential Advisor Vladimir Medinsky, has concluded at Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul.
This came according to diplomatic sources in the Turkish Foreign Ministry, who explained that a series of meetings will be held in various formats.
They indicated that holding trilateral meetings in the formats of (the United States – Ukraine – Turkey) and (Russia – Ukraine – Turkey) is on the agenda for Friday.
According to the same sources, it is not yet clear whether a quadrilateral meeting in the format of (the United States, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey) will be held.
Tomorrow, Minister Fidan, the US delegation headed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the Ukrainian delegation headed by Defense Minister Rustam Umarov, and the Russian delegation headed by Medinsky will be in Istanbul.
On May 11, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed resuming direct negotiations with Ukraine without preconditions on May 15 in Istanbul, asking his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to host the new round.
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President Erdoğan affirmed Turkey’s readiness to host the negotiations to achieve a just and lasting peace, while the Ukrainian government welcomed the move. The international community’s attention is now focused on the meetings hosted by Istanbul.
It is worth noting that in March 2022, Istanbul hosted several rounds of talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations to reach an agreement on ending the war.
The two countries signed an agreement in Istanbul in July 2022, brokered by Turkey and the United Nations, to ship Ukrainian grain across the Black Sea and help address the global food crisis that has worsened since the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war.
The agreement was extended three times before Moscow suspended it on July 17, 2023.
Since February 24, 2022, Russia has been waging a military offensive against its neighbor Ukraine, demanding that Kyiv abandon its membership in Western military entities as a condition for ending the offensive. Kyiv considers this to be “interference” in its affairs.
