The next round of negotiations between Ukraine and Russia to find a way out of the war will be held in Istanbul, the Turkish Presidency announced on Sunday, following a conversation between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
Erdogan and Putin spoke by phone today about the need to reach a ceasefire in Ukraine as soon as possible to improve the humanitarian situation in the area, Anadolu Agency reports, citing sources in the Turkish presidency.
Erdogan assured his interlocutor that Turkey will continue to participate in this process, and the two leaders agreed that the next round of negotiations between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations will be held in Istanbul.
The spokesman of the Turkish Presidency, Ibrahim Kalin, confirmed on his Twitter account this agreement for a meeting “this coming week”, but without giving specific dates.
According to Ukrainian negotiator David Arahamiya, the next round will be held in Turkey from March 28 to 30, while the head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, said the meeting would take place from March 29 to 30.
“We need an agreement with President (Vladimir) Putin. The guarantors will not sign anything if there are troops,” the Ukrainian president said in an interview with independent Russian media, including the Meduza portal (located in Latvia) and journalists from the banned television network Dozhd, the economic daily Kommersant and author Mikhail Zygar.
Communications regulator Roskomnadzor had said these outlets should not publish the interview, warning that it will “determine the degree of responsibility and take response action,” according to Meduza.
Zelensky maintained that “it is impossible” that the leaders of the United Kingdom, Boris, Johnson; from the USA, Joe Biden; from Poland, Andrzej Duda; and turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan sign any document as possible guarantors while a war is underway.
The president confirmed that he is willing to accept the neutral and non-nuclear status of the country, as demanded by Russia, in exchange for security guarantees.
“This is being worked on deeply, but I don’t want it to be another document like the Budapest Memorandum” of 1994, which granted Ukraine security guarantees in exchange for the renunciation of the nuclear arsenal inherited from the former Soviet Union and which Zelensky has said was left on paper.
“We are interested in it being a serious agreement,” he emphasized.
Zelensky explained that he is willing to sit down with Putin “anywhere in the world” to reach an agreement “with signatures, stamps and even blood” initialed in the document.
“That would be enough to start the withdrawal process. The troops must be withdrawn, the guarantors will sign everything and end,” he said.
He indicated, however, that then the work will not be over, because Ukraine will have to change its Constitution, since it enshrines the aspiration of the State to join NATO and this can take up to a year.
A referendum will be held first, because “only citizens can decide on status and guarantors,” he said, something that can be organized in “a few months.”
Then the changes in the Constitution will be undertaken, which could take “at least a year”, between the ratification in Parliament and that of the guarantor countries in their own legislatures.
As for Russia’s demand that Ukraine recognize the Crimean peninsula as part of Russia and the independence of the self-proclaimed donetsk and Luhansk republics, Zelensky said it is an issue that “must be addressed and resolved.”
“I say it’s a commitment. Let’s go back to before all this started (February 24) and we will try to solve the complex issue of Donbas,” he said.
Zelensky further noted that other points that are on the negotiating table with Russia such as the protection of the Russian language in Ukraine are being discussed, but explained that he is willing to accept a compromise.
This could have the formula of a mutual “respect for the languages of the citizens of neighboring countries,” he said.
“I want to sign it with all neighboring countries. I’m interested in Russia, Hungary, Poland… Romania. We have many minorities, nationalities and this agreement should be enough to respect certain languages in our country,” he said.
The president also said that the terms “denazification” and “demilitarization” are not on the table as Russia wanted because he refuses.
Zelensky also maintained that only “Putin and his circle prolong the war and that what it is happening “is worse” than a war and that its objective is to “minimize the number of victims and shorten the duration” of this conflict.
In addition, he suggested that he does not like Poland’s idea of sending a peace contingent to Ukraine, stating that “we do not need a frozen conflict on the territory of our state.”
