Phone call with Erdogan – negotiations: Nehammer offers “active” role

Nehammer exchanged views with Erdogan both before and after the meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a statement from the Chancellery to krone.at. In Thursday’s phone call, it was agreed that the best chance for peace in Ukraine was the ongoing Istanbul process.

“We clearly stand behind our active neutrality policy”
The two heads of government now want to continue working on creating safe humanitarian corridors to take civilians out of the affected areas – especially for the particularly affected city of Mariupol.

Nehammer explained after the call that they wanted to do “everything in our power” to improve the situation for the people of Ukraine. Austria “clearly stands behind its active neutrality policy,” the chancellor said.

Putin: Talks stalled
The question is how effective the efforts seem at the moment. It was only on Wednesday that Putin said that talks with Ukraine are “at a dead end”. He was also angry at Western sanctions against Russia – declaring that less gas would flow to Europe in the future.

Nehammer was pessimistic after the personal meeting with Putin. Immediately afterwards, the chancellor said he had not been able to get “generally positive impressions” from the “tough talk”. He also stated that Putin was “trapped in a war logic” and that a major attack on eastern Ukraine appeared to be imminent.