Turkey said it was exerting extensive efforts to halt Russian military operations in Ukraine, reiterating its offer to mediate between Moscow and Kyiv.
In a phone call on Saturday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky that Ankara was trying to work towards the declaration of an immediate ceasefire “to prevent further loss of life and damage to Ukraine,” the Turkish presidency said.
Also, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu asked his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to end the attack on Ukraine during a phone call on Saturday.
Cavusoglu told Lavrov that further military escalation would not benefit anyone.
Meanwhile, the Council of Europe on Friday said it was suspending all representatives of Russia from participating in the pan-European rights body’s Committee of Ministers and its parliament over Moscow’s attack on Ukraine.
The 47-nation Council of Europe said in a statement it decided to suspend the rights of representation of Russia from the committee and the assembly “with immediate effect.”
Turkey abstained during the vote. However, it has repeatedly called the Russian invasion of Ukraine “unacceptable.”
In a televised interview late on Friday, Cavusoglu said: “We don’t want to cut off the dialogue” with Russia, on which it is highly dependent for energy supplies.
Erdogan accuses NATO and the European Union of failing to take a “determined stance” on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“NATO should have taken a more decisive step,” Erdogan told reporters.
“The EU and other pro-Western [bodies] have failed to take a serious and determined stance at the moment. They are all providing Ukraine with plenty of advice.”
Ukraine asked Turkey on Thursday to close the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits to Russian ships.
Under the 1936 Montreux Convention, Ankara has control over the straits and can limit warship passages during wartime or if threatened.
Cavusoglu said Turkey was studying Kyiv’s request but said Russia had the right under the Convention to return ships to their home base, in this case the Black Sea.
The FM added that Turkish legal experts were still trying to determine whether the conflict in Ukraine could be defined as a war, which would allow the convention mandates to be invoked.
