Delegations from Russia and Ukraine will hold a new round of talks in Istanbul on Tuesday. The parties will meet in person for the first time since the talks in the Brest region of Belarus on March 7.
In this case, the delegations have been working all this time in the permanent mode - in the format of video conferencing. According to the head of the Russian delegation, assistant to the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Medinsky, the expert groups discussed almost daily, and the heads of the delegations negotiated two or three times a week. There were nights of work as well: lawyers, military personnel, and experts were checking positions and looking for compromises. The Russian side strictly adhered to the policy of non-disclosure of the details of the negotiation process, believing that this could be detrimental to it.
On the shore of the Bosphorus
This is the second time Turkey has mediated in the Russian-Ukrainian talks. On March 10, in the margins of a diplomatic forum in Antalya, the Turkish side organized a meeting of Russian and Ukrainian Foreign Ministers Sergey Lavrov and Dmitry Kuleba with the participation of Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. The talks were unsuccessful at that time, but Ankara continues to try to bring the positions of the sides closer.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan initiated the meeting in Istanbul. According to the office of the Turkish president, the relevant agreement was reached during a telephone conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Turkish leader. "President Erdogan stressed the need to establish a ceasefire and peace between Russia and Ukraine as soon as possible and to improve the humanitarian situation in the region," the office said following the conversation. Ankara has also been pushing for a meeting between Putin and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. However, as Moscow has repeatedly stressed, such a meeting will be possible only after the sides agree on the text of the agreement.
The talks in Istanbul will be held in the Dolmabahce Palace on the banks of the Bosporus, the last residence of the Ottoman sultans. It now houses the working office of the presidential administration. The palace often becomes a site for international talks of high and the highest level.
Russian and Ukrainian delegations arrived in Istanbul the day before. According to Erdogan, a short trilateral meeting will be held before the bilateral talks. The talks, like the previous face-to-face rounds in Belarus, will be held behind closed doors for the press.
Convergence on minor issues
"Now the positions are getting closer on minor questions, but on the major political questions we are in fact standing still," Medinsky said on March 25. According to Medinsky, Moscow is observing from its Ukrainian colleagues a desire to drag out the negotiations, which is why the current state of affairs "does not arouse optimism". It is not ruled out that the round of negotiations in Istanbul is intended to give them a new impetus.
Among the topics on which the parties managed to converge their positions as much as possible was Ukraine's refusal to join NATO and its neutral status. "We need a peaceful, free, independent Ukraine, neutral - not a member of military blocs, not a member of NATO, a country that is our friend, neighbor, with whom we are developing relations together, building our future, and which is not a springboard of military and economic attack against our country," Medinsky summarized Russia's goal in the talks. According to him, Moscow expects to reach an agreement "for generations, so that our children may also live in peace.
The Russian side has repeatedly stressed that one of the reasons for the lack of momentum in the negotiations is the lack of independence of the Ukrainian delegation and the Kiev regime. "It is not the Kiev regime that makes decisions, and the decisions that are made are not in the interests of the people, the population, the citizens of Ukraine. All this is done at the instigation of Washington through the relevant channels of communication, presenting decisions as those of the Ukrainian side, but in fact do not reflect either reality or policies aimed at the interests of the Ukrainian side," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing.
Time for a face-to-face synchronization of hours
"We have worked enough in distance, it's time for a face-to-face synchronization of hours," a source familiar with the negotiations explained to TASS the reasons for the meeting in Istanbul.
On the eve of the meeting of the delegations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov emphasized Moscow's interest in ensuring that the Istanbul talks "will be crowned with a result." "Of course, we want to give diplomacy a chance, which is why we agreed to the negotiations, which are now resuming in Istanbul," the minister stressed in an interview with Serbian media.
The Kremlin would not comment on the Russian side's hopes for an Istanbul round of talks, however, calling the very fact that face-to-face meetings continue important. "Face-to-face format allows negotiations to be more concentrated and richer in terms of content. <...> But so far, unfortunately, we can't state any significant achievements or breakthroughs," the press secretary explained.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Creative Commons
Based on materials from TASS