Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived today at the Black Sea resort of Sochi to speak with the head of the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, on the war in Ukraine, the implementation of grain export agreements and the situation in Syria.
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According to Russian media reports, Erdogan traveled accompanied by a large delegation that includes the ministers of Foreign Affairs, Defense, Energy, Finance, Agriculture and Trade.
Erdogan has been willing to mediate between Moscow and kyiv since the beginning of the Russian military campaign and, in fact, his country hosted several rounds of negotiations between the Russians and the Ukrainians.
However, the negotiations have stalled and the fighting has intensified in Donbas, the main objective of the Russian Army when the “special military operation” began in February in the neighboring country.
In addition, the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, specified that Putin and Erdogan will also exchange points of view “on how the journey of the first grain shipment from (the Ukrainian port of) Odessa passed.” He was referring to the freighter Razoni, which carried 26,500 tons of corn from Odessa to Lebanon across the Bosporus Strait on Monday.
According to the Turkish authorities, three other ships will depart on Friday from the Ukrainian ports of Odessa, Chornomosk and Pvidenny. In addition to bilateral issues, especially economic ones, according to Peskov, the leaders will discuss the situation in Syria, for which Hakan Fidan, the head of the Turkish intelligence service, has also traveled to Sochi.
According to the Turkish press, Erdogan wants to get Putin’s approval for a new Turkish military operation in northern Syria against Kurdish militiasthe Popular Protection Units (YPG), which has been announcing for weeks.
In this regard, Peskov highlighted today in his daily telephone press conference Turkey’s “legitimate concern” in terms of security, but considered it “very important” to avoid actions that cause “the destabilization of the situation in Syria” or that threaten its “territorial integrity”. “.
Russia is the main political and military ally of the Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad, while Turkey has supported Islamist militias opposed to the regime since that civil war began in 2011.
EFE
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