Face-to-face peace talks have resumed as negotiators from Russia and Ukraine met in the Turkish capital of Istanbul in a search for common ground that would put an end to the war that has killed thousands of people and driven millions more from their homes.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan welcomed the delegates, saying that “stopping this tragedy” is up to them.
“We hope that your meetings and your consultations will be auspicious for your countries, for our region, and for all of humanity,” Erdogan told the delegates at the start of the talks.
NATO member Turkey shares a maritime border with Ukraine and Russia in the Black Sea, has good ties with both countries, and has sought to mediate the conflict. Turkey-mediated talks in Antalya several weeks ago between the foreign ministers of both sides led to no progress on a ceasefire.
The Turkish president said he had spoken by phone in recent days with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with Erdogan saying that their conversations had revived expectations for a negotiated settlement.
“In line with the instructions from your leaders, the negotiations that you are running have given fresh hope for peace,” Erdogan told the negotiators ahead of the March 29 discussions.
In a video address ahead of the talks, Zelenskyy said his country is prepared to declare its neutrality, a key demand on Moscow’s part, and is open to compromise on the fate of the Donbas, the contested region in eastern Ukraine.
“A new round of negotiations is ahead, because we are looking for peace. Really. Without delay,” Zelenskyy said.
Ukraine’s priorities for the talks are well known, he said, with the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity being “beyond doubt” and meaningful security guarantees being “mandatory.”
“Our goal is obvious—peace and the restoration of normal life,” Zelenskyy said.
Russia has called the invasion a “special military operation” to “demilitarize” and “de-Nazify” Ukraine, generally understood as some form of degradation of Ukraine’s military forces and an ouster of its political leadership.
Zelenskyy insisted these two matters wouldn’t be the subject of the talks.
“We do not discuss ‘de-Nazification’ and demilitarization at all. I said that we will not sit at the negotiating table at all if we talk about some kind of demilitarization, some kind of ‘de-Nazification.’ For me, these are completely incomprehensible things,” Zelenskyy said.
The Ukrainian president reiterated his earlier view that any terms of a peace deal would have to be put to a referendum in Ukraine, while insisting that before a compromise is put to a popular vote, there needs to be a full withdrawal of Russian forces from his country.
“Regrettably, we cannot say there have been any significant achievements or breakthroughs so far,” Peskov said regarding the talks.
The spokesperson also declined to go into any details of what Russia’s expectations or demands were for the discussions in Istanbul, saying that such disclosure would be “harmful” to the negotiations.
More than a month into the conflict, more than 3.8 million people have fled abroad, thousands have been killed and injured, and Russia’s economy has been hammered by sanctions.
