প্রকাশ: 10/03/2022
Foreign ministers
from Russia and Ukraine will meet in Turkey on Thursday in the first high-level
talks between the two countries since Moscow invaded its neighbour, with Ankara
hoping they could mark a turning point in the raging conflict.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has tempered
expectations for a ceasefire agreement or other results from the meeting with
Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, on the sidelines of a diplomacy forum in
Turkey's southern province of Antalya.
Russia's invasion has uprooted more than 2 million people in
what the United Nations calls the fastest humanitarian crisis in Europe since
World War Two.
NATO member Turkey had repeatedly offered to mediate between
the sides and will host their top two diplomats after weeks of mediation
attempts by world powers.
Kuleba urged Lavrov to approach the talks "in good
faith, not from a propagandistic perspective."
"I will say frankly that my expectations of the talks
are low," Kuleba said in a video statement on Wednesday. "We are
interested in a ceasefire, liberating our territories and the third point is to
resolve all humanitarian issues."
Moscow has said it is ready for talks with Ukraine, but that
all of its demands - including that Kyiv takes a neutral position and drops
aspirations of joining the NATO alliance - must be met to end its assault.
Delegations from the two countries have held three rounds of
talks previously, two in Belarus and one in Ukraine. Despite some positive
signs on humanitarian arrangements, those negotiations have had little impact.
Moscow calls its incursion a "special military
operation" to disarm Ukraine and dislodge leaders it calls
"neo-Nazis." Kyiv and its Western allies dismiss that as baseless
pretext for an unprovoked war against a democratic country of 44 million
people.
TURKEY'S BALANCE
Bringing Lavrov and Kuleba together marks "a step
forward" and could escalate diplomacy at higher levels in Moscow, said
Mustafa Aydin, professor at Kadir Has University in Istanbul.
"Russia is not yet close to entertaining peace, though
it is slowly changing its stance," he said. "Its initially
uncompromising posture is slowly giving way to a negotiation stance though not
yet enough for a concrete outcome."
Turkey shares a maritime border with Russia and Ukraine in
the Black Sea and has good ties with both. Ankara has called Russia's invasion
unacceptable and appealed for an urgent ceasefire, but has opposed sanctions on
Moscow.
While forging close ties with Russia on energy, defence, and
trade, and relying heavily on Russian tourists, Turkey has also sold drones to Ukraine,
angering Moscow. It also opposes Russian policies in Syria and Libya, as well
as its 2014 annexation of Crimea.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said both Lavrov
and Kuleba had requested that he attend the talks on Thursday, adding he wished
the meeting could be a "turning point".
At the weekend, Turkey and Israel ramped up their push for
mediation. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan urged Russian President Vladimir
Putin to declare a ceasefire in a call on Sunday.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett held talks with Putin
in Moscow at the weekend, and later spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelenskiy.
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