Erdogan spoke about plans to personally discuss with Putin the transfer of the leaders of “Azov” to Kyiv

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan intends to personally discuss with Russian President Vladimir Putin the transfer of the commanders of the Ukrainian Azov battalion (recognized as terrorist in Russia and banned) to Kyiv. He announced this during a press conference following the NATO summit in Vilnius.

“We received a request for the release of their six commanders. We have decided to give a positive answer. After that, a number of statements were made in Russia, but after they found out the details (the extradition of militants to Kyiv – ed.), the situation became positive, ”he said (cit. according to TASS).

Erdogan also noted that Putin should come to Turkey in August, where, as the Turkish leader expects, they will be able to discuss these issues in person.

After that, the press secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov informedthat the date of the talks between the two leaders has not yet been determined.

On July 7, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Istanbul, where he met with Erdogan. Later, the Ukrainian leader announced his return to Ukraine, along with five Azov commanders who ended up in Turkey in the fall of 2022 as a result of an exchange of prisoners of war between Kiev and Moscow. It was originally planned that the Azov commanders would remain in Turkey until the end of the conflict in Ukraine. The Kremlin called the incident a violation of the agreements by Ankara.

In mid-June, Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov announced Putin’s visit to Turkey “in the near future”. Then he said that there was no agreement on specific dates, but the Russian president had already received an invitation from Erdogan.

Last time, Putin and Erdogan met on the sidelines of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Astana on October 13, 2022. They discussed, among other things, the development of a grain deal and the creation of a gas hub. After that, the leaders of the states conducted only telephone conversations. In particular, on May 29, Putin and Erdogan confirmed by telephone their intention “to continue joint work on the entire current agenda.” The last time they had a telephone conversation was on June 24. Then Putin informed his Turkish counterpart about the situation around an attempted armed rebellion led by the founder of Wagner PMC Yevgeny Prigozhin.