Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has offered to host a new round of Ukraine-Russia peace negotiations more than two years after the Russian invasion began.
Russia and Ukraine have not participated in any direct peace negotiations since the early months of the conflict, with Turkey having hosted the last talks in March 2022. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin have since repeatedly suggested that the countries are too philosophically opposed to reach a compromise that could end the war.
In a video address to those attending the Ukraine-Southeast Europe Summit in Tirana, Albania, on Wednesday, Erdoğan lamented that there had recently been "insufficient progress towards peace." The Turkish president then offered to host new talks, while stressing that his country supports "Ukraine's independence, sovereignty, security and territorial integrity."
"Utilizing diplomatic channels at the highest level from every possible avenue is of great importance," Erdoğan said, according to Ukrainska Pravda and Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency. "I'm of the opinion that joint efforts should be initiated, at least on determining general parameters of peace."
"I remain committed to giving diplomacy and dialogue a chance to end the war with a just and lasting peace," he added. "We are ready to offer again the negotiating table that we previously organized in Istanbul to build peace."
Erdoğan also said that Turkey supports Zelensky's "10 step peace formula," at least "in principle." Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov previously said that Moscow "will not talk to anyone" about Zelensky's conditions, which were proposed during a November 2022 G20 summit in Indonesia.
Items in Zelensky's "formula" that Russia is unwilling to consider include the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territories, including those that Moscow has claimed to annex, the cessation of all hostilities and the release of all prisoners and deported persons.
Newsweek reached out for comment via email to the Russian and Ukrainian ministries of foreign affairs on Wednesday.
Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Antonov told Newsweek last week that Zelensky's conditions for peace were "meaningless and one-sided," while arguing that support for the conditions by Western allies ignores "the position of the Russian Federation" and "aspirations of the Global South."
Putin claimed during his interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson earlier this month that Zelensky had the power to end the conflict but had signed "a ban on negotiating with Russia," apparently referring to a document that bans direct talks with Putin but not all Russian officials.
The Russian president insisted that Russia was "willing to negotiate," before claiming that Ukraine was standing in the way because it "is obviously a satellite state of the U.S." He then suggested that the U.S. and NATO could bring peace by deciding to recognize the illegally annexed parts of Ukraine as Russian territory "with dignity."
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Aila Slisco is a Newsweek night reporter based in New York. Her focus is on reporting national politics, where she ... Read more
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