Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, while in North Korea Oct. 18-19, said that Russia was ready to cooperate with Türkiye on the latter’s proposal for a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza, according to Daily Sabah, though they did not quote Lavrov saying that directly. According to Lavrov: “We are ready to discuss any constructive proposals. Türkiye’s initiative is clearly dictated by the desire to achieve de-escalation. We advocate approaches to the issue that will be balanced and will not be imposed on one of the sides by the other. The Turkish initiative appears to be a balanced one,” he said at his press conference today, following his Pyongyang visit.
The Turkish plan, which was announced by Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Oct. 16, involves finding “guarantor nations” for each of the warring parties, in the same way that Türkiye, Russia and Iran acted as guarantors—in effect, substitute negotiators—for the Syrian government and its adversaries in the civil war there, during what was called the Astana Process.
Türkiye advocates a two-state solution to the conflict. In the NATO-Russia war, it organized the early negotiations in March 2022 which were on the verge of arriving at a peace agreement, when NATO intervened, when British Prime Minister Boris Johnson compelled Ukraine to stop talking and fight.
