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Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Monday called on Russia and Ukraine to urgently begin negotiating a cease-fire ahead of peace talks scheduled to take place in Istanbul later this week.
“We invite the parties to come together as soon as possible and start the cease-fire,” he told a joint press conference in Ankara with his Syrian and Jordanian counterparts.
“Right now there is an issue that needs to be reconciled: the Ukrainians want a cease-fire first, then talks, and the Russians want talks first then a cease-fire, so the situation has come to a deadlock,” he said, expressing confidence that the parties would “come together for a compromise in the coming days.”
At the weekend, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the leaders of France, Britain, Germany and Poland urged Russia to accept a 30-day unconditional cease-fire starting Monday as a precondition for direct talks.
But Russia did not respond, with President Vladimir Putin instead proposing the sides meet for direct talks in Istanbul on May 15, in a move that won the approval of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Late Sunday, Zelenskyy said he would be willing to “personally” meet Putin in Türkiye but did not say whether he would still attend if the Russian leader rejected the 30-day cease-fire.
The two sides had held direct talks in Istanbul in the first weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2024, but failed to agree on how to halt the fighting, which has been raging ever since.
