President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Tuesday told his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy that he welcomed the progress made in Russia-Ukraine peace talks in Istanbul but also expressed hope to see meaningful progress toward a cease-fire in future rounds.

The Turkish Presidency said in a statement that Erdoğan had repeated his offer to host a leaders' meeting between Russia and Ukraine, adding that the formation of working groups on military, humanitarian and political matters would help pave the way for such a meeting.