Akar: Turkiye to continue to act as mediator between Russia, Ukraine

The Turkish leadership must retain the opportunity to conduct a full-fledged dialogue with Russia and play the role of an intermediary between Moscow and Kyiv, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said in an interview with The Financial Times, Report informs.

"Someone has to talk to Russia," he said. "Without dialogue, we will reach a dead end. We should expect gratitude from the West towards our president [Recep Tayyip Erdogan]," Akar added.

He said that over the past year, Erdogan has often acted as an intermediary between the Russian Federation and Ukraine and contacted Russian President Vladimir Putin shortly after talking with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelenskyy, passing messages from Kyiv to Moscow.

Akar also noted that the agreement concluded with the help of Turkiye on the export of grain from the ports of Ukraine could become a model for reaching a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine. He also repeated the call for the need for a "humanitarian truce" between the parties to the conflict.