ANTALYA (Turkey), March 21 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Turkey said Russia and Ukraine made progress on their negotiations to halt the invasion and the two warring sides were close to an agreement.
“Of course, it is not an easy thing to come to terms with while the war is going on, while civilians are killed, but we would like to say that momentum is still gained,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in live comments from the southern Turkish province of Antalya.
“We see that the parties are close to an agreement.”
Cavusoglu this week visited Russia and Ukraine as Turkey, which has strong bonds with the two sides, has tried to position itself as a mediator.
Ankara hosted the foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine in Antalya last week.
Cavusoglu said Turkey was in contact with the negotiating teams from the two countries but he refused to divulge the details of the talks as “we play an honest mediator and facilitator role.”
In an interview with daily Hurriyet, presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said the sides were negotiating six points: Ukraine’s neutrality, disarmament and security guarantees, the so-called “de-Nazification”, removal of obstacles on the use of the Russian language in Ukraine, the status of the breakaway Donbass region and the status of Crimea annexed by Russia in 2014.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly appealed for peace, urging Russia to accept “meaningful” talks for an end to the invasion.
“This is the time to meet, to talk, time for renewing territorial integrity and fairness for Ukraine,” he said, in his latest video posted on social media.
Turkey said it was ready to host a meeting between Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Meanwhile in GENEVA, the United Nations refugees chief said 10 million people — more than a
quarter of the population — have now fled their homes in Ukraine due to the “devastating” war.
“Among the responsibilities of those who wage war, everywhere in the world, is the suffering inflicted on civilians who are forced to flee their homes,” said UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi.
“The war in Ukraine is so devastating that 10 million have fled either displaced inside the country, or as refugees abroad.”
UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, said Sunday that 3,389,044 Ukrainians had left since the Russian invasion began on February 24, with another 60,352 joining the exodus since Saturday’s update — a flow roughly the same as the day before.
Some 90 percent of those who have fled are women and children. Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60 are eligible for military call-up and cannot leave.
UNICEF, the UN children’s agency, said more than 1.5 million children are among those who have fled abroad, warning that the risks they face of human trafficking and exploitation are “real, and growing”.
The UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) also said that as of Wednesday, 162,000 third-country nationals had fled Ukraine to neighbouring states.
Millions more have fled their homes but remain within Ukraine’s borders.
Some 6.48 million people were estimated to be internally displaced within Ukraine as of Wednesday, according to UN and related agencies, following an IOM representative survey.
UNHCR initially estimated that up to four million people could leave Ukraine.
Before the conflict, Ukraine had a population of 37 million in the regions under government control, excluding Russia-annexed Crimea and the pro-Russian separatist regions in the east. — NNN-AGENCIES
