War in Ukraine: new session of Russian-Ukrainian negotiations in Turkey on Monday
Steph Deschamps / March 28, 2022
Russian and Ukrainian delegations will meet in Turkey from Monday to Wednesday for a new round of face-to-face negotiations, one of the Ukrainian negotiators, David Arakhamia, announced on Sunday.
The chief negotiator on the Russian side, Vladimir Medinski, quoted by Russian agencies, also announced a new round of talks, but said they would take place on Tuesday and Wednesday, without specifying the location.
In discussions today via video conference, it was decided to hold the next face-to-face round in Turkey on March 28-30, David Arakhamia said on his Facebook page.
It was not immediately clear what exactly would be discussed. On Sunday, in a video message recorded for a program intended to raise funds in support of Ukraine broadcast by Polish television TVP, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky repeated that he demanded a ceasefire and a complete withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory. A face-to-face Russian-Ukrainian negotiation session had already taken place on March 10 in Antalya, Turkey, at the level of foreign ministers and at the invitation of Ankara, without leading to any concrete progress. Since then, discussions have continued by videoconference, deemed difficult by both sides.
The negotiation process is very difficult, the head of Ukrainian diplomacy Dmytro Kouleba said on Friday.
He had denied any consensus with Moscow, while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had assured a little earlier that Russians and Ukrainians were in agreement on four out of six negotiation points.
There is no consensus with Russia on the four points mentioned by the President of Turkey, said Mr. Kouleba, praising however the diplomatic efforts of Ankara to end the war. Mr. Medinsky had estimated on Friday that the talks were stalling on the important points. Positions are converging on secondary issues. But on the main political (issues), we are stalling, he said, quoted by Russian news agencies. He added that Moscow insisted on signing a comprehensive treaty taking into account its demands for neutrality, demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, as well as the recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea and the independence of the two pro-Russian separatist republics of Donbass.