ISTANBUL, July 28. /TASS/. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has reiterated his country’s readiness to host a leaders’ meeting on Ukraine and expressed hope for a diplomatic end to the Ukrainian conflict.
"We believe that this war has to end now. We are always ready to host a leaders’ meeting. Just as we laid the table for negotiations [on Ukraine] in Istanbul, we can lay the table for peace talks in Turkey again to put an end to this bloody war," he said in an address to the nation televised by the TRT Haber channel.
Istanbul hosted the third round of direct Russian-Ukrainian talks on July 23. During the 40-minute talks that were preceded by a tete-a-tete meeting between the delegation heads, Vladimir Medinsky of Russia and Rustem Umerov of Ukraine, the sides discussed their positions laid down in their memorandums.
The meeting yielded an agreement to exchange not only military but also civilians. Russia proposed to set up three working groups to address political, military, and humanitarian issues. Apart from that, Moscow offered Kiev to transfer 3,000 more bodies of Ukrainian troops and suggested that the practice of short humanitarian pauses be resumed along the frontline to collect the wounded and bodies of those killed.
According to Medinsky, a decision on the fourth round of talks will be made after the third round’s agreements are implemented.