ANKARA, April 26. /TASS/. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will hold talks via telephone with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, before a ceremony to mark the delivery of nuclear fuel to Turkey's Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant, presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said on Wednesday.

"Before the [fuel delivery] ceremony at the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant, [President] Erdogan will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. They plan to discuss the situation in Ukraine as well as bilateral relations," the Star newspaper quoted the spokesman as saying.

Kalin pointed out that military action in Ukraine has been "continuing for over a year." "We continue working [on the issue]. It is necessary to join forces to ensure that peace talks [take place] to end the war. Turkey is ready to play its role as a country capable of talking to both Russia and Ukraine," he said. The spokesman also noted that he was referring not only to the Russia-Ukraine conflict specifically, but also to the overall confrontation between Russia and the West.

On April 27, a ceremony marking the delivery of the first batch of nuclear fuel for the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant’s first unit is slated to take place in Mersin on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast. Putin is expected to take part in the ceremony remotely via a videolink. Once the nuclear fuel is delivered to the facility, it will officially become a nuclear power plant.

The Akkuyu NPP is Turkey’s first nuclear power plant. The project is being implemented under the intergovernmental agreement signed by Russia and Turkey in 2010.