Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday said he is grateful for Turkey’s consistent support amid tensions with Russia.
Zelenskyy on Twitter said he held regular talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
The Turkish presidential office said that the two leaders spoke on the latest developments and the Russian attack in a call.
Turkey has also stepped up diplomacy and urged for talks and a cease-fire to prevent further escalation that could destabilize the region.
Ankara has found itself in a balancing act between Russia and Ukraine given the friendly ties and Black Sea maritime boundaries it shares with both parties. NATO member Turkey also has good economic and political relations with both countries and Erdoğan earlier last week said Ankara did not want to alienate either state.
Turkey has offered to mediate the crisis and had earlier warned Russia not to invade Ukraine. Ankara has been closely following the developments and is in close contact with both Kyiv and Moscow. While forging cooperation on defense and energy, Turkey has opposed Moscow’s policies in Syria and Libya, as well as its annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. It has also sold sophisticated drones to Ukraine, angering Russia. Turkey also strongly opposed Russia’s recognition of Ukraine’s breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
While Turkey’s call for mediation and its offer to host a Minsk group meeting in Istanbul was welcomed by Ukraine, Russia held back from officially accepting the offer.
Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu on Friday during an extraordinary meeting of NATO's top diplomats in Brussels said Ankara wants to bring Russian and Ukrainian top diplomats together during the next week’s Antalya Diplomacy Forum.
Addressing reporters after the meeting, he said that they would like to bring Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba together at the Antalya Diplomatic Forum if conditions allow.
