Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is trying to mediate between Moscow and Kyiv, believes that a hypothetical peace deal should include the return of Russian-held territories, including Crimea. He said so in an interview with the US broadcaster PBS, in which he also assured that Putin could soon take “significant steps” to seek an end to the war.
The Islamist leader has met his Russian counterpart three times in the past two months. The last time, last week in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, during the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, led by Moscow and Beijing. At that summit, both China and India expressed their unease to Putin about prolonging the war.
“In Uzbekistan I met President Putin and we had extensive talks with him [sobre Ucrania]. And indeed it shows that he is ready to get this over with as soon as possible. That was my impression because things are going in a problematic direction,” Erdogan said during an interview in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly that is taking place these days.
Asked whether Russia should be allowed to keep some of the territory it has seized since Putin began invading Ukraine on February 24, Erdogan replied, “No, definitely not.” In the event that a peace agreement is reached, which Turkey has been negotiating with the parties since March, “it is expected” that “the occupied territories will be returned to Ukraine”. “The return of the occupied territories will be very important,” stressed Erdogan. In addition, he extended this wish to the territory of Crimea, which has been occupied since 2014.
Turkey maintains a historical relationship with this peninsula, which was a vassal of the Ottoman Empire and is one of the homelands of the Tatar people, who share linguistic and cultural ties with the Turks. Turkish nationalism emerged in the 19th century among the bourgeoisie and key Tatar intellectuals, who were pursued by the Russian Empire’s policies of homogenization and brought these ideas into their exile in Istanbul. “Since 2014 I have been talking about this with my very dear friend Putin and we asked him. We asked you to return Crimea to its rightful owners. That they are our descendants at the same time,” Erdogan said.
Ankara has maintained a policy of balance since the start of the Russian invasion, closing the Turkish Straits passage that gives Russian military ships access to the Black Sea, although it has also sold armed drones to Ukraine, a country with which it has a strategic alliance agreement , which involves the joint production of weapons and defense equipment. Turkey has refused to apply sanctions approved by its NATO partners and has allowed its country to become one of the main outlets for Russian manufacturing. But it has also managed to persuade Moscow to accept the implementation of the Black Sea Grain Corridor, which has enabled Ukraine’s grain exports blocked by the conflict to resume. In addition, during the interview, Erdogan announced that an exchange of more than 200 prisoners of war between Moscow and Kyiv had been agreed.
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