Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has urged his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in a phone call to implement a "unilateral ceasefire" in Ukraine coupled with a "vision for a fair solution", Belga News Agency and Reuters have reported.
"President Erdogan said calls for peace and negotiations should be supported by a unilateral ceasefire and a vision for a fair solution," Erdogan's office reported on Thursday.
The Kremlin later responded to Erdogan's remarks by claiming that it is "open to serious dialogue" so long as Kyiv "takes into account the new territorial realities," referring to those regions in southern and eastern Ukraine illegally annexed by Russia.
Erdogan, who is also due to hold talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday, has attempted to steer a neutral path between Moscow and Kyiv ever since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year.
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In addition to hosting two rounds of peace talks between both countries in the early months of the invasion, Turkey helped arranged a deal in July which allowed for the export of Ukrainian grain from the Black Sea. Turkey also played a key role in organising a prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine in September.
Despite selling weapons to Kyiv, supporting opposite sides of the conflict in both Libya and Syria, and being a NATO member, Turkey has maintained especially warm ties with Russia in recent memory. This is partly a consequence of the fact that Turkey has refused to join Western sanctions against Russia, as well as the (related) fact that its energy imports from Russia have skyrocketed over the past year.
