MOSCOW, April 16. /TASS/. Russia can eventually convince Turkey that Moscow’s position on Crimea is right but it is hardly possible to convey this to Ukraine, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.
“Their statements on Crimea refer to a category of issues, on which we still have serious disagreements,” Peskov noted.
“These disagreements can hardly be settled with the Ukrainian side, but we hope that our consistent line will make it possible to convince our Turkish partners after all that their current position on Crimea is quite wrong,” the Russian presidential spokesman said.
The relationships that Turkey is building with neighboring countries fall within the state’s sovereign right, Peskov pointed out.
“As for the negotiations between President [of Turkey Recep Tayyip] Erdogan and President [of Ukraine Vladimir] Zelensky, these are the states’ bilateral relationships,” the Kremlin spokesman specified.
Peskov answered in the negative to a question about whether the relationship between Russia and Turkey had somehow “cooled off” in recent weeks, noting that, on the contrary, these ties were developing.
Erdogan stated on April 10 that during the talks with his Ukrainian counterpart in Istanbul he had reaffirmed Ankara’s decision not to recognize “Crimea’s annexation.” “We stand for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine. We reaffirmed our principled decision not to recognize Crimea’s annexation. We stated that we support Ukraine’s ‘Crimean Platform’ initiative geared to consolidate the international community around Crimea,” he said at a press conference broadcast by the Turkish TRT TV channel.