President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will meet his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on Friday, the Kremlin said on Thursday.
Erdoğan will be in Turkmenistan on Friday to attend the International Peace and Trust Forum that will also mark the Day of Neutrality in the Central Asian country. Putin was also scheduled to attend the event.
The Turkish leader last talked to Putin during a phone call in November, where the two men discussed bilateral relations and the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Türkiye is keen on hosting the Russian and Ukrainian sides again after earlier talks between the warring sides in Istanbul achieved results to an extent. As the United States seeks to end an impasse on possible peace talks, Ankara proposed hosting another round of talks while Erdoğan was engaged in an intense diplomacy with the sides. As a matter of fact, his phone call with Putin was preceded by a meeting with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Ankara.
During a joint news conference with visiting Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Monday, Erdoğan reiterated Türkiye’s commitment to finding a solution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. “We mobilized diplomacy for a fair and lasting peace between the sides. The whole world knows what we are doing to achieve it and we will continue these efforts based on the principle that a fair peace has no losers,” Erdoğan has said.
Zelenskyy was due to hold urgent talks on Thursday with leaders and officials from about 30 countries that are supporting Kyiv's effort to obtain fair terms for an end to the war with Russia. The leaders of Germany, Britain and France were among those expected to take part in the meeting of Ukraine's allies, dubbed the Coalition of the Willing, via video link.
Zelenskyy indicated the talks were hastily arranged as Kyiv officials scramble to avoid getting boxed in by U.S. President Donald Trump's demands for a swift settlement. European governments are trying to help steer the peace negotiations because they say their own security is at stake.
Trump said Wednesday that he and European leaders discussed proposals by phone in "pretty strong terms," adding that Zelenskyy "has to be realistic" about his country's position on a peace plan that would cede Ukrainian territory to Russia. He didn't elaborate. Trump's latest effort to broker a settlement is taking longer than he wanted. He initially set a hard deadline for Kyiv to accept his peace plan before Thanksgiving. Previous Washington deadlines for reaching a peace deal have also passed without making a breakthrough.
Russia is also keen to show Trump it is engaging with his peace efforts, hoping to avoid any further U.S. sanctions. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday that Russia has relayed to Washington "additional proposals ... concerning collective security guarantees" that Ukraine and Europe say are needed to deter future aggression.
