Meeting with Selensky

Ukraine war: Erdogan invites to peace summit

Selensky met with Erdogan in Istanbul.(Bild: APA/AFP/OZAN KOSE)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has offered to host peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. "We are prepared to host a peace summit at which Russia is also represented," Erdogan said on Friday after a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Istanbul.

Turkey supports the sovereignty and territorial integrity of its "strategic partner, Ukraine", Erdogan continued. At the same time, it is committed to ending this war and negotiating "a just peace".

Passage through the Black Sea an issue
Erdogan said that he had spoken with Zelenskyi about issues such as the security of ports and shipping in the Black Sea, food safety and the exchange of prisoners between Russia and Ukraine. He believed that Turkey could contribute to making progress on these issues

Selensky thanked Erdogan for his efforts to free Ukrainian citizens from Russian captivity. He explained in a post on Platform X (see below) that significant humanitarian successes had already been achieved through Turkish mediation and that further support was now being counted on.

List of prisoners handed over
On Friday, he presented the Turkish head of state with a list of Ukrainian prisoners, including Crimean Tatars, who are being held in "extremely harsh and inhumane conditions" in Russian prisons. All of them, soldiers and civilians alike, Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars, must be released, emphasized Selenskyj.

It is no coincidence that the Ukrainian president particularly emphasized the Crimean Tatars: like the Turks, they are a Turkic-speaking ethnic group. In the past, Erdogan had reaffirmed his support for the territorial integrity of Ukraine as well as for the Muslim Turkic people of the Crimean Tatars.

Turkey maintains contact with Russia
Zelenskyi arrived in Istanbul this afternoon with his defense minister Rustem Umerov - himself a Crimean Tatar. NATO member Turkey has maintained its contacts with both Ukraine and Russia since the start of the war. On the one hand, Ankara supplies combat drones to Kiev; on the other, it continues to maintain trade relations with Moscow and obtains a large proportion of its energy sources from Russia.