President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan held a phone call with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on Monday. The call focused on bilateral relations as well as the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
The Turkish Presidency’s Communications Directorate said Erdoğan promised Türkiye’s commitment to efforts for a fair and lasting peace during the phone call. “The president said Türkiye, as it did in the past, was ready to contribute to every diplomatic initiative and plan that will pave the way for permanent peace in our region, to direct negotiations between (Russia and Ukraine).”
In a statement, the Kremlin said Putin and Erdoğan discussed a U.S. proposal to end the war in Ukraine.
"Vladimir Putin noted that these proposals, in the version in which we have reviewed them, are in line with the discussions at the Russian-American summit in Alaska and, in principle, can be used as the basis for a final peaceful settlement," the Kremlin said, referring to an August meeting between Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump. "The Russian side's interest in a political and diplomatic solution to the Ukrainian crisis was reaffirmed."
The U.S. and Ukraine pressed on with talks in Switzerland on Monday to come up with a mutually acceptable peace plan, after agreeing to modify a U.S. proposal that Kyiv and its European allies saw as a Kremlin wish list. Washington and Kyiv said in a joint statement they had drafted a "refined peace framework" after a first day of talks in Geneva on Sunday, although they did not provide specifics.
The U.S. blindsided Kyiv and European countries with a 28-point peace plan last week, giving Ukraine until Thursday to agree to a framework to end Europe's deadliest war since World War II.
After Sunday's talks, no public statement was released on how the revised plan would handle contentious issues such as how to guarantee Ukraine's security against future Russian threats and how to fund the rebuilding of Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelenskiyy said negotiations were still ongoing while the Kremlin said nothing had officially been conveyed to Russia. "We all continue working with partners, especially the U.S., to look for compromises that will strengthen but not weaken us," Zelenskiyy said via video link from a separate summit of Ukraine's allies in Sweden. Zelenskiyy said Russia must pay for the war in Ukraine and that a decision on using frozen Russian assets was crucial.
The initial 28-point proposal put forth by the U.S. last week called on Ukraine to cede more territory, accept limits on its military and abandon its ambitions to join NATO, Russian demands that Ukrainians have long rejected.
European allies said they were not involved in crafting the original plan. They released a counterproposal that would ease some of the proposed territorial concessions and include a NATO-style security guarantee from the U.S. for Ukraine if it is attacked.
"We are, of course, closely monitoring the media reports that have been pouring in from Geneva over the past few days, but we have not yet received anything official," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Some EU leaders will meet to discuss Ukraine on the sidelines of an EU-African Union summit in Luanda on Monday, with others dialing in via video conference.
Russian forces have slowly gained ground in some regions, while Ukraine's power and gas facilities have been pummeled by drone and missile attacks, leaving millions of people without water, heating and power for hours each day.
