Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kubela today asked Turkey to be “one of the guarantors” of an eventual agreement with Russia, his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Çavusoglu announced today, visiting Lviv, western Ukraine.
This information was released during a joint press conference of the two representatives, in which Kuleba also explained that the draft agreement released on Wednesday by the British daily Financial Times, composed of 15 points, only reflects the position of Moscow and that “at this moment should not be interpreted as accepted by Ukraine”.
According to Mevlut Çavusoglu — who met with Kuleba in Lviv — Ukrainian diplomacy “issued an offer on a P5 collective security agreement [the five permanent members of the UN Security Council], plus Turkey and Germany”, assuring that “the Russian Federation does not raise any objection”.
After a visit to Moscow, where he met on Wednesday with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, the head of Turkish diplomacy said that Kuleba assured him today that the draft 15-point agreement, released the day before, only reflects the position of russian.
Kuleba explained that, at this moment, Kyiv “cannot negotiate its security with Russia alone”, explaining that “multilateral guarantees” must be sought.
After diplomatic meetings in recent days, Çavusoglu said he believed that “hopes for a ceasefire had increased” and reiterated the idea that Turkey was ready to host a summit between the Presidents of Ukraine and Russia, “when the ground is prepared for this meeting”.
Mevlut Çavusoglu said there were “tens of thousands of people in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol waiting to be evacuated”, including a hundred Turks.
Turkey has been heavily involved on the diplomatic front of the ongoing conflict and hosted last Thursday the first face-to-face meeting between Lavrov and Kuleba since the start of the Russian military offensive in Ukraine on 24 February.
Mevlut Çavusoglu was the mediator of this meeting that took place in Antalya, a city in southern Turkey, which ended up without any progress.
A NATO member and Ukraine ally, Turkey also has close ties with Russia and has been careful to maintain an open line with both countries since the start of the conflict.
In the early hours of February 24, Russia launched a military offensive in Ukraine that has already caused at least 4.8 million people to flee, more than three million of them to neighboring countries, according to the latest UN data – – the worst refugee crisis in Europe since the Second World War (1939-1945).
The Russian invasion was condemned by the international community in general, and many countries and organizations imposed sanctions on Russia that affect practically all sectors, from banking to sports.
Source: with agencies