Turkey criticized Russia and Ukraine for failing to implement any of the understandings reached during talks between their negotiators in Istanbul on Tuesday.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Thursday his country has not seen the full implementation of the decisions from the talks, including Russia’s vow it would sharply scale back military activity around Kyiv and the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv as a sign of goodwill.
The Ukrainian negotiators said in Istanbul that they had proposed that Ukraine adopt neutral status in exchange for security guarantees, meaning that it would not join military alliances or host military bases for other countries.
Turkey is working to bring together the Ukrainian and Russian foreign ministers for talks after hosting peace negotiations in Istanbul this week, Cavusoglu said, adding the meeting could happen within two weeks.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry announced that Sergei Lavrov would not refuse to meet with his Ukrainian counterpart if the talks were “objective and meaningful.”
Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he is determined to hold a meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian presidents as soon as possible to put an end to the bloodshed.
Turkey is ready, in principle, to act as a guarantor country for Ukraine, but the details of such a format need to be worked out, Erdogan was cited as saying on Thursday.
NATO member Turkey shares a maritime border with Ukraine and Russia in the Black Sea, has good ties with both and has offered to mediate the conflict.
It has supported Ukraine while opposing sanctions on Moscow, and this week hosted negotiators from both sides for the first face-to-face peace talks in weeks.
Speaking on a flight from Uzbekistan, Erdogan said the talks in Istanbul, where Ukraine gave Russia a written proposal to end the war, had provided “significant momentum” to the process.
He added he would again convey an offer to host Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Russia’s Vladimir Putin for talks.
