President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan late on Monday spoke with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko to discuss the latest developments and the first round of peace talks between Ukrainian and Russian officials aimed at ending the conflict.
In a phone call, Erdoğan told Lukashenko that Turkey "will continue to make efforts to stop this war and establish peace," the Turkish Presidency wrote on Twitter.
The first round of Ukraine-Russia talks aimed at ending the fighting concluded with no immediate agreements on Monday and both delegations returned home for consultations in their capitals.
Early Monday night, Mykhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to Ukraine’s president, said the talks were focused on a possible cease-fire and that a second round could take place “in the near future.” The talks were held near the Ukraine-Belarus border.
The negotiations were the first face-to-face talks between Ukrainian and Russian officials since the war began last Thursday.
The U.N. human rights chief on Monday said at least 102 civilians have been killed and hundreds wounded in more than four days of fighting — warning that figure is probably a vast undercount — and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at least 16 children were among the dead.
More than a half million people have fled the country since the invasion, another U.N. official said, with many of them going to Poland, Romania and Hungary. And millions have left their homes.
