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Ankara: Time to Start Dialogue Between Moscow, Kyiv on Ceasefire

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan met on Sunday with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov (Reuters)
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan met on Sunday with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov (Reuters)
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Ankara: Time to Start Dialogue Between Moscow, Kyiv on Ceasefire

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan met on Sunday with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov (Reuters)
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan met on Sunday with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov (Reuters)

Türkiye says it is now time to start a dialogue between Moscow and Kyiv for a ceasefire, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Sunday in the southern city of Antalya.

Fidan met his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, on Friday on the sidelines of the Antalya Diplomacy Forum. He told reporters he had discussed a number of issues with Lavrov, including Ukraine.

“On the issue of Ukraine, our view is that both sides have reached the limits of what they can get by war. We think that it is time to start a dialogue for a ceasefire,”Fidan said.

The foreign minister added that opening up ceasefire talks “doesn't mean recognizing the occupation (by Russia), but issues of sovereignty and ceasefire should be discussed separately.”

NATO member Türkiye, which shares a maritime border with both Ukraine and Russia in the Black Sea, has sought to maintain good ties with both nations since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine two years ago.

Ankara has provided military support for Ukraine and voiced support for its territorial integrity, but also opposes sanctions on Russia.

Fidan’s meeting with Lavrov came shortly before a trip to Washington to meet his American counterpart Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

The meeting will be held within the framework of the Türkiye-US Strategic Dialogue Mechanism, held on March 7 and 8. It comes as Moscow signaled its readiness to hold talks with Washington.

In 2022, Türkiye hosted unofficial peace talks between Russia and Ukraine at the second diplomatic forum in the Turkish city of Antalya. The talks has not yielded any positive results.

Last month, Türkiye’s President Tayyip Erdogan expressed his ongoing willingness to mediate between Russia and Ukraine for a “fair” peace between the two countries.

“We have brought the parties together in Türkiye on multiple occasions. We can do this again and open the door to peace through a solution-focused process management, free from external influences,” Erdogan said.

“In our meetings with both President (Vladimir) Putin and President (Volodymyr) Zelenskiy, we continue our efforts in this pursuit,” he added.

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7 Killed by Russian Attacks as Moscow Pushes Ahead in Ukraine's East

Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV
Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV
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7 Killed by Russian Attacks as Moscow Pushes Ahead in Ukraine's East

Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV
Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV

Russian shelling in the town of Chasiv Yar on Saturday killed five people, as Moscow’s troops pushed ahead in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
The attack struck a high-rise building and a private home, said regional Gov. Vadym Filaskhin, who said the victims were men aged 24 to 38. He urged the last remaining residents to leave the front-line town, which had a pre-war population of 12,000.
“Normal life has been impossible in Chasiv Yar for more than two years,” Filaskhin wrote on social media. “Do not become a Russian target — evacuate.” A further two people were killed by Russian shelling in the Kharkiv region. One victim was pulled from the rubble of a house in the village of Cherkaska Lozova, said Gov. Oleh Syniehubov, while a second woman died of her wounds while being transported to a hospital.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said it captured the town of Pivnichne, also in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. The Associated Press could not independently verify the claim.
Russian forces have been driving deeper into the partly occupied eastern region, the total capture of which is one of the Kremlin’s primary ambitions. Russia’s army is closing in on Pokrovsk, a critical logistics hub for the Ukrainian defense in the area.
At the same time, Ukraine has sent its forces into Russia’s Kursk region in recent weeks in the largest incursion onto Russian soil since World War II. The move is partly an effort to force Russia to draw troops away from the Donetsk front.
Elsewhere, the number of wounded following a Russian attack on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Friday continued to rise.
Six people were killed, including a 14-year-old girl, when glide bombs struck five locations across the city, said regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov. Writing on social media Saturday, he said that the number of injured had risen from 47 to 96.
Syniehubov also confirmed that the 12-story apartment block that was hit by one bomb strike, setting the building ablaze and trapping at least one person on an upper floor, would be partly demolished.
Ukrainian officials have previously pointed to the Kharkiv strikes as further evidence that Western partners should scrap restrictions on what the Ukrainian military can target with donated weapons.
In an interview with CNN on Friday, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said that Kyiv had presented Washington with a list of potential long-range targets within Russia for its approval. “I hope we were heard,” he said.
He also denied speculation that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ’s decision to dismiss the commander of the country’s air force Friday was directly linked to the destruction of an F-16 warplane that Ukraine received from its Western partners four days earlier.
The order to dismiss Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleshchuk was published on the presidential website minutes before an address which saw Zelenskyy stress the need to “take care of all our soldiers.”
“This is two separate issues,” said Umerov. “At this stage, I would not connect them.”
The number of injured also continued to rise in the Russian border region of Belgorod, where five people were killed Friday by Ukrainian shelling, said Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov. He said Sunday that 46 people had been injured, of whom 37 were in the hospital, including seven children. Writing on social media, Gladkov also said that two others had been injured in Ukrainian shelling across the region.