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Ukraine war: Erdoğan hopes at meetings with Selenskyj and Guterres for the end of the war "at the negotiating table"

2022-08-18T18:48:08.746Z


In Ukraine, the Turkish President met his Ukrainian counterpart and the UN Secretary-General. Erdoğan and Guterres want to explore a solution to the problem with Kremlin chief Putin.


Enlarge image

Erdoğan, Zelenskyy and Guterres (from left to right) in Lviv

Photo: Evgeniy Maloletka / dpa

Almost six months after Russia invaded neighboring Ukraine, international diplomatic efforts to end the war are intensifying.

The success of the negotiations with the grain agreement in July is "only the beginning" of a positive dynamic, said UN Secretary-General António Guterres after a meeting with the Presidents of Ukraine and Turkey, Volodymyr Zelenskyj and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in Lviv, Ukraine.

Erdoğan reiterated his hope for a diplomatic solution.

"I continue to believe that the war will eventually end at the negotiating table." Selenskyj and Guterres also see it that way, said Erdoğan, according to the Turkish presidential palace.

The war brought countless deaths, massive destruction and displacement, as well as dramatic human rights violations, Guterres said, according to the United Nations.

"People need peace," he warned.

The meeting in Lviv in the west of the country was an opportunity for the United Nations and Turkey to explore a negotiated solution with Ukraine.

Zelenskyy said in Lviv that he saw Erdoğan's visit as a "strong sign of support" for Ukraine.

However, he ruled out a peace settlement with Moscow as long as Russia does not completely withdraw its soldiers from Ukrainian territory.

"People who kill, rape and attack our cities with cruise missiles every day cannot want peace," said the Ukrainian president.

"You have to leave our territory first, then we'll see."

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said nobody in Lviv urged Ukraine to make concessions to Russia.

The Russian side was not represented at the summit.

Erdoğan: "We don't want to see another Chernobyl"

The situation in the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, which was occupied by Russian troops, was also discussed in the talks.

For weeks, Europe's largest nuclear power plant has been under fire - Russia and Ukraine blame each other for it.

After the three-way summit, Guterres again called for the withdrawal of all troops around the nuclear power plant.

"The area must be demilitarized." Any possible damage to the nuclear power plant is "suicide."

Erdoğan also warned of a nuclear catastrophe: "We don't want to experience a new Chernobyl."

Even before Guterres' speech, Russia had described calls for demilitarization as "unacceptable."

This would make the facility even more vulnerable to attacks, a spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

The Russian occupiers accused the Ukrainian leadership of planning an attack on the nuclear power plant for Friday.

For its part, Kyiv warned of a possible Russian act of sabotage.

Reconnaissance mission to bombed prison

Meanwhile, an international mission is to investigate an attack on the Olenivka prison camp near Donetsk, as Guterres announced.

About 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war were killed in the attack in late July.

Kyiv blamed Russia for the mass murder, research by foreign experts and the media also came to the same conclusion.

Moscow, on the other hand, accused Ukrainian troops of shelling the prison camp.

According to official figures, at least eleven people were killed in massive Russian rocket attacks on the city of Kharkiv on Thursday night in eastern Ukraine.

The Ukrainian military governor Oleh Synyehubov said in a telegram that these were exclusively civilians.

Another 35 people were injured.

There were also attacks in the city of Krasnohrad, around 80 kilometers to the south-west.

According to the authorities, two people were killed and two others injured.

The information could not be independently verified.

The United Nations has registered more than 5,500 civilian deaths in the war, but assumes the number of victims to be far higher.

kko/dpa/AFP

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2022-08-18

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