Turkey wants to arrange Russia-West negotiations, says Turkish journalist
President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (Photo:Sputnik/Alexander Demyanchuk/Pool via REUTERS)
Turkey wants to bring Russia and the Western countries, including the United States, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, to the negotiating table, Özay Şendir, a columnist for the Turkish Milliyet newspaper, wrote on Oct. 7.
According to the journalist, having analyzed Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s speeches since Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine, Turkey has come to the conclusion that “Moscow wants a long-term deal with the West.”
He did not specify who was his source in the Turkish government.
At the same time, the question is whether “it’s possible to get into contact with Russia (to invite) for dialogue,” Şendir wrote.
Şendir said not all Western capitals had yet received the relevant road map for the negotiations. However, it has already been submitted to the United States through “important and private channels,” and the first feedback from influential officials in Washington was “quite positive.”
“Ankara also respects Ukraine’s will and speaks through open channels that the war must transform into peace without the use of tactical nuclear weapons,” the journalist said, without specifying whether Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine would be on the agenda.
Ibrahim Kalin, a spokesperson for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said on Oct. 8 that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin wants to have a new “grand bargain” between Russia and the West.
“It’s partly about Ukraine, no doubt,” Kalin said.
“But the larger issue is really a new deal between Russia and the Western world.”
Erdoğan had a phone talk with Putin on Oct. 7. Prior to that, on Oct. 6, the Turkish leader said that even the worst peace in Ukraine would be better than war.
Erdoğan said the deal allowing the export of Ukrainian grain from several Ukrainian Black Sea ports and latest prisoner swaps were examples of what could be achieved through mediation and negotiation.
Russian dictator Vladimir Putin on Sept. 30 signed “agreements” on annexing Russia-occupied Ukrainian territory with the proxy leaders from the sham republics the Kremlin set up in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, as well as with collaborators from Kherson and Zaporizhzhya oblasts.
After that, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy endorsed a recent decision made by the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) to outlaw any talks with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
The President’s Office stressed that negotiations between Ukraine and Russia would be impossible while Russia is headed by Putin.
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