The Russian and Ukrainian delegations will meet in Istanbul, Turkey, for a new round of negotiations, the Turkish presidency announced in a statement on Sunday evening.
A telephone conversation
During a telephone conversation on Sunday evening, “Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian Head of State Vladimir Putin agreed on the holding of the next round of negotiations between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul”, affirmed the Turkish presidency.
The two heads of state discussed the negotiation process and Erdogan assured his Russian counterpart that Turkey was ready to make “any contribution necessary” to establish a ceasefire in Ukraine and “improve the condition humanitarianism in the region”.
A new round of negotiations
Earlier in the day, one of the Ukrainian negotiators, David Arakhamia, announced that a new round of negotiations would take place from Monday to Wednesday in Turkey, without specifying the meeting place. The chief negotiator on the Russian side, Vladimir Medinski, quoted by the Russian agencies, had for his part affirmed that it would take place on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The Turkish presidency did not specify the exact date of the meeting. “We are aware of the responsibility that the confidence of both parties in Turkey gives us. We hope the meetings result in a lasting ceasefire and open the door to peace,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Twitter.
The desire for a ceasefire
On Sunday, in a video message recorded for a program aimed at raising funds in support of Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky repeated that he demanded “a ceasefire” and “a complete withdrawal of Russian troops”. of Ukrainian territory.
A Russian-Ukrainian negotiation session had already taken place on March 10 in Turkey, in Antalya, at the level of foreign ministers and at the invitation of Ankara, without leading to concrete progress. Since then, the discussions have continued by videoconference, deemed “difficult” by both camps.
Difficult negotiations
“The negotiation process is very difficult,” declared the head of Ukrainian diplomacy Dmytro Kouleba again on Friday. He had denied any “consensus” with Moscow, while the Turkish president had assured a little earlier that Russians and Ukrainians were in agreement on four negotiating points out of six.
“There is no consensus with Russia on the four points mentioned by the President of Turkey,” Kouleba said, welcoming, however, “diplomatic efforts” by Ankara to end the war.