Russia and Ukraine are about to negotiate in Turkey
Delegations from Russia and Ukraine will meet in Turkey from next week to continue to find ways to resolve the conflict.
“Through a round of online negotiations, the two sides have decided to hold the next round of face-to-face talks in Turkey on March 28-30,” David Arakhamia, Ukraine’s negotiator, wrote on Facebook today. He did not disclose exactly where the two delegations would meet in Turkey.
Russia’s chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky confirmed the event would take place but gave a different time frame, saying the operation would begin on March 29 and end on March 30.
Russian and Ukrainian officials take part in the second round of talks in the Brest region, Belarus, on March 3. Photo: Reuters.
Turkey earlier this month hosted the foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine for talks in the resort town of Antalya. The discussion was not groundbreaking, but Ankara considers it a success.
The Russian and Ukrainian delegations held three rounds of face-to-face talks in Belarus and then conducted online discussions. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said this week that Russia and Ukraine appeared to have reached an agreement on four key issues in the negotiations, including language. Moscow has for years accused the Russian-speaking community in Ukraine of being discriminated against as one of the main reasons for the military campaign in the neighboring country.
However, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on March 25 that dialogues with Moscow were “fraught with difficulties” due to disagreements on key issues, insisting that Kiev would not give in.
Russia has launched a military campaign in Ukraine since February 24 and the fighting has shown no sign of abating so far. The Russian military’s advance is most favorable on the southern coast of Ukraine, when it controls the large city of Kherson and a number of smaller targets such as Melitopol. Moscow has also stepped up airstrikes against targets in western Ukraine since mid-March. Many Western countries have provided training to transfer modern weapons, with thousands of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, to Ukraine, mainly through the gateway in west of this country.
On March 25, the Russian military said that the first phase of the operation in Ukraine was almost completed and would “focus on liberating” the Donbass region in the east. Leaders of the breakaway Lugansk region today raised the possibility of holding a referendum on the annexation of Russia. Ukraine’s foreign ministry said that any referendum by the breakaway region would be considered “null and void”.
The two breakaway regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, collectively known as the Donbass region, broke away from Ukrainian government control in 2014 and declared themselves independent “people’s republics”. President of Russia Vladimir Putin signed a decree recognizing the independence of these two regions on February 21.
The appearance of the Ukrainian battlefield after a month of fighting. Click on the picture to see details.
Vu Hoang (According to AFP, Reuters)
at Blogtuan.info – Source: vnexpress.net – Read the original article here
