en War Russia vs Ukraine Istanbul will host the next round of peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators

Istanbul will host the next round of peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators

28 March 2022, 15:47

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Istanbul will host the next round of peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators - en

The opportunity to host both the Ukrainian and Russian negotiating teams represents a step up for Turkey’s involvement in negotiations, after the Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said that the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, came to Antalya earlier this month “to discuss but not decide”, adding he was surprised at Lavrov’s lack of authority to negotiate.

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, discussed the talks during a phone call yesterday, but did not state publicly when this week the talks would begin.

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Turkey has worked to position itself as a neutral ally to both Ukraine and Russia and a key diplomatic partner at the entrance to the Black Sea region, the Guardian reports.

This includes hosting tripartite talks with the Ukrainian and Russian foreign ministers in the southern city of Antalya as well as the foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, conducting shuttle diplomacy during recent visits to Lviv and Moscow. Turkey viewed the talks as successful, despite a lack of progress around the main discussion point of humanitarian corridors, particularly for the besieged city of Mariupol.

The Times is also reporting that Roman Abramovich held backchannel talks with the Ukrainian MP and Crimean Tartar Rustem Umerov in Istanbul, calling Abramovich “President Putin’s unofficial envoy in talks with Ukraine”. The series of talks were coordinated by presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin, who reportedly proposed that “Crimea and Donbas should be held by Moscow under a long-term lease, similar to Britain’s control over Hong Kong from 1898 to 1997, with their future decided at a later date”, according to the Times.