Russia says Türkiye a liked platform by all parties in Ukraine settlement process

By Burc Eruygur

ISTANBUL (AA) - Russia said on Monday that Türkiye is "liked" as a platform by all parties involved in the process of finding a settlement in the ongoing Ukraine war, as the Turkish metropolis Istanbul hosted a third round of direct peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv.

“Türkiye is certainly liked by all participants in the negotiation process, and we are grateful to Ankara and the Turkish leadership for their efforts to help find ways to resolve the situation around Ukraine,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters at a press briefing in Moscow.

Russia and Ukraine held a third round of renewed peace talks in Istanbul on Wednesday evening, following talks in May and June.

Earlier, Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council Secretary Rustem Umerov also thanked Türkiye for its “facilitating role” in the talks, describing the country as “an important platform for dialogue and peace.”

After the third round of talks on July 23, Ukraine proposed a meeting of the heads of state before the end of August, and the two sides reached a consensus on continuing to exchange prisoners of war.

Commenting on Russia’s proposal to create three working groups for the process of further prisoner swaps, Peskov said Moscow has not yet received a response from Kyiv on the matter.

He denied the presence of specific plans to organize a meeting in Türkiye between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump, while also not ruling out a meeting between the two leaders in China in the future.

“We still believe that first we need to do the work at the expert level, because leaving this work -- difficult, rough -- to the presidents is absolutely illogical,” he went on to say.

“We need to prepare, we need to draw up the parameters of the settlement, and then fix them at the highest level, not the other way around,” Peskov added.