President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Monday urged a fair and balanced approach to achieve lasting peace between Russia and Ukraine, which have fought a devastating war since February 2022.
"The path to a just and lasting peace can be opened with an equation where both sides to the war are equally and fairly represented," Erdoğan said in a video message to the Crimean Platform Leaders' Summit, held to mark the third anniversary of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
He underscored that lasting peace requires the inclusion of all parties involved in the conflict.
"Next year, it is our shared responsibility to commemorate the anniversary of peace, not of war," Erdoğan said.
About Ankara's diplomatic efforts, he said: "As Türkiye, we will continue to work with all our strength to establish a just and lasting peace."
Sending his condolences to all Ukrainians who were killed while defending their homeland and their relatives, Erdoğan assured his country would continue giving Ukraine's “just cause the necessary support, in line with the fundamental principles of international law, since the annexation of Crimea in 2014.”
“Just as we declared our opposition to the war when the conflict began three years ago, today we are determined to make every effort to end the war through negotiations and to continue our strong support for Ukraine's territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence,” the Turkish president said.
Erdoğan last week hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Ankara to discuss Russia's invasion of Ukraine, as well as Turkish-Ukrainian ties.
“Zelenskyy and I discussed Türkiye’s contributions to this important junction and its desire to host negotiations,” Erdoğan said in his video message and reiterated Ankara’s commitment to facilitating peace.
Türkiye remains an ideal host for talks between Russia, Ukraine and the United States, Erdoğan told reporters alongside Zelenskyy.
Zelenskyy’s meeting with Erdoğan notably coincided with a high-level official Washington-Moscow meeting in Saudi Arabia where Russia and the U.S. agreed to start working toward ending the war in Ukraine and improving their diplomatic and economic ties, marking an extraordinary U-turn in U.S. policy on Russia.
Zelenskyy slammed Ukraine's exclusion from the negotiations and said talks to end the war should be "fair" and involve European countries, including Türkiye, which offered to host negotiations.
“As Türkiye, we will continue to work with all our might to establish a just and permanent peace. With these thoughts, I wholeheartedly hope that 2025 will be a year in which peace will be built,” Erdoğan concluded.
