KIEV, March 13. /TASS/. Ukraine’s authorities are maintaining contacts with Israel and Turkey, which can act as mediators for the organization of possible talks between Ukrainian and Russian Presidents, Vladimir Zelensky and Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhail Podolyak said on Sunday.
"With the help of our partners, our mediators, who want to carry out a mediation mission - it may be Israel, it may be Turkey and so on - we are looking for a venue to organize talk from the point of view of security guarantees, and what is most important, we are working on a package of agreements that would take into account Ukraine’s positions," he said in an interview with the Ukraina-24 television channel.
"When it is done and agreed, the presidents will be able to meet and discuss the final provisions of a peace treaty," he said. "I think it will happen and that we won’t have to wait long for that. I am not ready to say that it will happen within days. It will take some time. But we will spare no efforts to make it happen as soon as possible."
On March 10, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmitry Kuleba, on the sidelines of a diplomatic forum in Turkey’s Antalya. The Russian top diplomat said after the talks that President Putin was not refusing from meeting President Zelensky, but such a meeting should be preceded by preparatory work.