Monitoring Desk
ISTANBUL: Turkiye on Saturday said it was ready to push for local ceasefires in Ukraine and warned that neither Kyiv nor Moscow had the military means to “win the war.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s foreign policy adviser Ibrahim Kalin admitted that it seemed unlikely that the warring sides were ready to agree on an “overarching peace deal” in the coming few months.
However, he said that the brutal cost of fighting might soon see them reconsider and accept localized truces in specific parts of the war zone.
“Turkiye is willing to push for small localized de-escalations and local ceasefires,” Kalin told reporters.
“Neither Moscow nor Kyiv is in a position to win the war militarily, on the battlefield.”
Turkish president’s efforts to end war
President Erdogan has utilized his good relations with Kyiv and Moscow to try to mediate an end to the Ukraine war.
Turkiye hosted two early rounds of peace negotiations and helped strike an UN-backed agreement restoring Ukrainian grain deliveries across the Black Sea.
Erdogan has also held repeated phone consultations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky to find common ground.
Kalin said Russia was initially interested in “security guarantees” from the NATO group and respect on the global stage.
“What Moscow wants is to be respected as a major world player and to avoid having NATO in their backyard,” he said.
“Ukraine is not going to join NATO; however, they need to get enough security guarantee from Russia,” Kalin said.
