new Delhi . The foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine – Sergei Lavrov and Dmitry Kuleba – held their first round of talks in Turkey, with the leaders of the two countries discussing the possibility of a summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky.
The war between the two countries has been going on for the last 15 days and with the aim of ending this conflict, Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers have met in Turkey.
This effort to end the conflict through high-level diplomacy comes at a time when Zelensky appears to have been soft on considering Russian demands, including recognition of Crimea as Russian territory and separate Donetsk. and the status of the Luhansk republics, which have been recognized by Moscow as sovereign states.
After their meeting organized by the Turkish Foreign Minister – in the resort town of Antalya, the Russian Foreign Minister spoke at length on Russian demands to end the war. Lavrov insisted that Moscow wants Ukraine to remain neutral. In return, Moscow is ready to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine, European countries and Russia. Lavrov said Moscow wants friendly relations with Ukraine – a country that should not work to impose sanctions on the Russian language and culture.
After launching a military offensive on 24 February, President Putin stated that the purpose of the special operation was to demilitarize and de-Nazify (get rid of the Nazis) the country. The Russian side said Moscow was left with no other option, as Kyiv had failed to implement the Minsk Agreements – a diplomatic blueprint to protect the rights of ethnic Russians in the strategically important region within a unified Ukrainian state. . In addition, Ukraine threatened to withdraw from the Budapest Memorandum, which is the basis for guaranteeing Ukraine’s status as a non-nuclear weapon state.
The Russian side has also emphasized that NATO must comply with the NATO-Russia Founding Act of 1997, which for that year barred the group’s military capabilities, including strike(s) and NATO infrastructure. But in 2008 NATO adopted the ‘Bucharest formula’, which warned of expanding the group to cover two former Soviet states – Georgia and Ukraine.
Earlier, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov made it clear that Ukraine’s neutrality should be enshrined in its constitution.
Emphasizing that Moscow would not give up on the diplomatic track, Lavrov insisted that there was no substitute for Belarus as the main host of talks between Russia and Ukraine.
“Today’s talks have confirmed that the (Belarusian) track (for talks) has no choice,” Lavrov said.
He said the issue of a ceasefire was not on the agenda of his talks with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba on Friday.
The foreign minister highlighted that Moscow supports any contacts aimed at ending the current crisis in Ukraine, but added that these channels should have ‘added value’ for Moscow to support them. Needed.
Lavrov said, “We act on the premise that these contacts will not be used to replace or devalue the actual main dialogue track that is developing in Belarusian territory – something that our allies, mostly Ukrainians, do. Do it regularly.”
Lavrov stressed that President Putin never says ‘no’ to contacts unless these talks are conducted ‘for the meetings himself’. The news website Sputnik reported that the Kremlin has yet to confirm that such talks are being held, but the topic has been raised during Lavrov’s talks with Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba in Turkey. . (-AnyTV News)
read this also – Click to read the news of your state / city before the newspaper