RIA Novosti: a meeting in Turkey on Ukraine may take place in October

A meeting in Turkey on a peaceful settlement in Ukraine may take place in the last ten days of October. About it reported RIA Novosti, citing a diplomatic source in Ankara.

“There is no exact date yet, coordination is underway [по дипломатическим каналам]. Apparently, this will be the last ten days of October,” he said.

Bloomberg previously reported that Turkey followed Denmark and Saudi Arabia at the end of October intends hold a third international meeting on a peaceful settlement in Ukraine. US officials are expected to attend the meeting, but the White House has not yet decided who will travel to Istanbul. According to the agency, Russia was not invited to the negotiations.

Negotiations in Istanbul could become the third international meeting on the issue of achieving peace in Ukraine. The first took place in Denmark in June, and the second in Saudi Arabia in August. Russia was not invited to both events. The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, stated that negotiations on Ukraine without Russia are “absurd” and “nonsense.”

In early September, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reported about Ankara’s readiness to undertake mediation on Ukraine. In turn, Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasized that the Turkish leader has always paid and is paying great attention to resolving the situation in Ukraine; under him, agreements were reached with the Ukrainian side and documents were agreed upon.

Since the beginning of Russia’s special operation in Ukraine, the parties held negotiations several times in February and March 2022. The first three face-to-face meetings took place in Belarus in February–March, and the fourth round of the Russian-Ukrainian dialogue took place on March 29, 2022 in Istanbul. After this, the process was frozen because Kyiv withdrew from it. On October 4, 2022, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky signed a decree refusing negotiations with Russia as long as Vladimir Putin is its president. After this, the Kremlin repeatedly declared its readiness for negotiations, but pointed out the impossibility of holding them because of this document.