Russia is actively studying Türkiye’s peace initiative to resolve the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, said Moscow’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov as part of an interview with Russian news agency RIA Novosti, reported Istanbul’s Hürriyet Daily News.
Lavrov remarked that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had met and discussed these issues in Kazan on the sidelines of the Oct. 22-24 BRICS Summit. Lavrov pointed to Türkiye’s pivotal role in facilitating the drafting of the only peace treaty between Russia and Ukraine, and also brokering the Black Sea Grain Initiative agreements that enabled Ukrainian grain exports through the Black Sea, Unfortunately, he said, Ukraine did not sign the treaty and used the grain deal to launch provocations against Russia in the Black Sea.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry transcript, Lavrov replied in part that: “All of these agreements were subsequently either rejected or ignored by Kiev. The Ukrainians simply walked away from the initialed draft peace agreement. They used the Black Sea Initiative humanitarian corridor as a cover to launch attacks and provocations against Russian ships and coastal infrastructure. To this day, the Russian part of the deal on normalizing Russian agricultural products and fertilizer access to international markets remains unfulfilled.”
Despite these challenges, writes Hürriyet, “there appears to be an opening for renewed dialogue. Lavrov referenced a recent meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Erdogan on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Kazan, where Putin expressed Russia’s openness to continuing discussions on Black Sea navigation.
“’UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has expressed similar views, and all proposals are now under review by the relevant authorities,’ Lavrov added, suggesting a multilateral approach to resolving the issues.”