Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has offered to organize peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. “We are ready to organize a peace summit in which Russia will also be represented,” Erdogan said on Friday after meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Istanbul.
Turkey supports the sovereignty and territorial integrity of its “strategic partner Ukraine,” Erdogan continued. At the same time, she wants to ensure that this war ends and “a just peace” is negotiated.
Passage through the theme of the Black Sea
Erdogan said he spoke with Zelensky on issues such as the security of ports and shipping in the Black Sea, food security and prisoner exchanges between Russia and Ukraine. He believes that Turkey can help make progress in this area
Zelensky thanked Erdogan for his efforts to free Ukrainian citizens from Russian captivity. Significant humanitarian successes have already been achieved through Turkish mediation, and we now count on further support, he explained in a post on Platform X (see below).
List of transferred prisoners
On Friday, he handed over to the Turkish head of state a list of Ukrainian prisoners, including Crimean Tatars, who were being held in “extremely harsh and inhumane conditions” in Russian prisons. Zelensky emphasized that all of them, soldiers and civilians, Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars, must be released.
It is no coincidence that the Ukrainian president has singled out the Crimean Tatars in particular: like the Turks, they are a Turkish-speaking ethnic group. In the past, Erdogan had reiterated his support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity and for the Crimean Tatar Muslim Turkish people.
Türkiye maintains contacts with Russia
Zelenskyi arrived in Istanbul in the afternoon with his Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, himself a Crimean Tatar. NATO member Turkey has maintained contacts with both Ukraine and Russia since the start of the war. On the one hand, Ankara supplies combat drones to Kiev, on the other hand it continues to maintain trade relations with Moscow and obtains a large part of its energy resources from Russia.
Source: Krone
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