DrTurkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has presented himself as the Prince of Peace for several months, at least when it comes to Ukraine. After the first Russian invasion in 2014, the autocrat became involved as a defender of the Crimean Tatars: they are originally a Turkic-speaking ethnic group and make up a significant minority in Turkey.
Although Erdogan did not recognize the annexation of Crimea, he also did not participate in the West’s sanctions against Russia. In the fall of last year, when Russia deployed its forces on the Ukrainian border, he then offered to mediate between Moscow and Kiev. At the time, that seemed like overconfidence. At the time, not many thought about war – at least abroad.
But with the beginning of the invasion, Erdogan succeeded in playing the role of mediator. The two failed rounds of Russian-Ukrainian talks took place in March in Turkey, in Antalya and Istanbul.
end of July Turkey and the United Nations brokered a wheat deal with Russia and Ukraine, allowing Ukrainian grain to be exported through the Black Sea. So far, 24 ships have managed to exit Ukraine through the „wheat corridor”, allowing the country to resume exports after five months of enforced disruption.
Erdogan now wants to build on that in Lviv, during bilateral talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the trilateral meeting that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will attend. After the last meeting with Putin in early August, Erdogan said he believed the crisis could be resolved at the negotiating table.
However, if we measure the course of the war, this sounds like a mere political statement, because neither Russia nor Ukraine sees itself at a point where it has to negotiate at the moment.
Russia hopes to gain control of the entire region of the Donetsk and Luhansk states in order to annex them along with the occupied territories in southern Ukraine. Kyiv is determined to prevent this and is preparing to launch an offensive in the south.
Planned international security guarantees
Selenskyj’s expectations for the meeting should not be particularly high. He will want to talk more about military cooperation with Turkey than about diplomatic jokes.
Ukrainian Ambassador to Turkey Vasyl Bodnar said in an interview that his government hopes, early next year, to open its own factory for Bayraktar TB2 aircraft, and a plot of land has already been purchased.
Silinsky, Erdogan and Guterres will still talk about a diplomatic solution. A few days ago, Ukraine’s presidential office said that a group led by Presidential Office Chief Andriy Yermak and former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen is working on a document containing recommendations on international security guarantees for Ukraine.
The meeting will hardly achieve a breakthrough. But it would be an important step to draw more international attention to the conflict once again.
According to UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric, both leaders want to talk to Guterres about the situation around the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant and about the UN mission to investigate the deaths of prisoners of war in the Russian-controlled Olinevka camp.
Guterres had already called Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Monday about the location of the nuclear power plant and the investigation mission.
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