Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold a telephone conversation with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday. Erdogan announced such plans on Sunday, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed the information to TASS.
The Russian and Turkish leaders are expected to discuss the situation in Ukraine again in the context of a special military operation to protect Donbass. In addition, Erdogan intends to hold a telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky on May 30.
Commenting on the upcoming conversations, Erdogan noted that Russia "does not look positively" on Sweden's and Finland's intention to join NATO. Moscow is "especially worried about the Finnish issue," the president of Turkey said. Earlier, he stated that Ankara would not support admission of these countries into the North Atlantic Alliance until they define their attitude towards terrorist organizations, in particular, the Kurdistan Workers' Party. Erdogan later clarified that Ankara could change its position if Stockholm and Helsinki clearly demonstrated solidarity on security issues.
The leaders of Russia and Turkey have spoken by telephone several times since the start of the special military operation. The last such conversations took place on April 28 and 26. Then they also discussed the situation in Ukraine, and Putin thanked Erdogan for his assistance in the exchange of Russian citizen Konstantin Yaroshenko for US citizen Trevor Reid at Ankara airport.
The Russian head of state regularly conducts international telephone conversations with the leaders of other countries. In May, he had such conversations with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and others. On May 28, Putin had a joint telephone conversation with French leader Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
GSV "Russia - Islamic world"
Photo: official website of the President of the Russian Federation
Based on materials from TASS