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Turkish top diplomat Cavusoglu to be in Moscow on March 16, says President Erdogan

On Thursday, he is bound to have talks in Ukraine, the Turkish President also noted

ANKARA, March 15. /TASS/. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan confirmed on Tuesday that his country’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu will pay an official visit to Moscow on March 16.

"Tomorrow I am sending my minister of Foreign Affairs [Mevlut Cavusoglu] to Russia and on Thursday he is bound to have talks in Ukraine," President Erdogan said following an almost three-hour meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers’ meeting in Ankara earlier in the day.

Last Thursday, Turkey’s Antalya hosted a diplomatic forum on the Ukrainian conflict settlement and on the sidelines of this event, a meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian top diplomats, Sergey Lavrov and Dmitry Kuleba respectively, took place with the participation of Mevlut Cavusoglu.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on February 24 that in response to a request by the heads of the Donbass republics he had made a decision to carry out a special military operation in Ukraine in order to protect people "who have been suffering from abuse and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years."

The Russian leader stressed that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories and the operation was aimed at demilitarizing and denazifying Ukraine.

When clarifying the developments unfolding, the Russian Defense Ministry reassured that Russian troops are not targeting Ukrainian cities, but are limited to surgically striking and incapacitating Ukrainian military infrastructure. There are no threats whatsoever to the civilian population.

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