ISTANBUL: Turkey’s foreign minister said in an interview published on Sunday that Russia and Ukraine were nearing agreement on “critical” issues and he was hopeful for a cease-fire if the two sides did not backtrack from progress achieved so far.
Russian forces invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. President Vladimir Putin has called Russia’s actions a “special operation” meant to demilitarize Ukraine and purge it of what he sees as dangerous nationalists. Ukraine and the West say Putin launched an aggressive war of choice.
Foreign ministers Sergei Lavrov of Russia and Dmytro Kuleba of Ukraine met in the Turkish resort town of Antalya earlier this month with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu also attending. The discussions did not yield concrete results.
But Cavusoglu, who also traveled to Russia and Ukraine last week for talks with Lavrov and Kuleba, told Turkish daily Hurriyet that there had been “rapprochement in the positions of both sides on important subjects, critical subjects.”
“We can say we are hopeful for a cease-fire if the sides do not take a step back from the current positions,” he said, without elaborating on the issues.
Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin, speaking to al Jazeera television, said the two sides were getting closer on four key issues. He cited Russia’s demand for Ukraine to renounce ambitions to join NATO, demilitarization, what Russia has referred to as “de-nazification,” and the protection of the Russian language in Ukraine.
Ukraine and the West have dismissed Russian references to “neo-Nazis” in Ukraine’s democratically elected leadership as baseless propaganda, and Kalin said such references were offensive to Kyiv.
Kyiv and Moscow reported some progress in talks last week toward a political formula that would guarantee Ukraine’s security, while keeping it outside NATO, though each sides accused the other of dragging matters out.
Kalin said a permanent cease-fire could come only through a meeting between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. But he said Putin felt that positions on the “strategic issues” of Crimea and Donbas were not close enough for a meeting.
Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 while part of the eastern industrial Donbas region was seized by Russian-backed separatist forces that year.
NATO member Turkey shares a maritime border with Ukraine and Russia in the Black Sea, has good relations with both and has offered to mediate between them.
It has voiced support for Ukraine, but has also opposed far-reaching Western sanctions imposed on Moscow over the invasion.
While forging close ties with Russia on energy, defense and trade and relying heavily on Russian tourists, Turkey has sold drones to Ukraine, angering Moscow.
Turkey also opposes Russian policies in Syria and Libya, as well as Moscow’s annexation of Crimea.
President Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly said Turkey will not abandon its relations with Russia or Ukraine, saying Ankara’s ability to speak to both sides was an asset.
Turkey says Russia and Ukraine nearing agreement on ‘critical’ issues
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Turkey says Russia and Ukraine nearing agreement on ‘critical’ issues
- ‘We can say we are hopeful for a cease-fire if the sides do not take a step back from the current positions’
Trump downplays importance of Russia reportedly sharing intel with Iran to help it hit US targets
- Critics charge that Trump was giving Russia a break that will provide Moscow with badly needed revenue as it looks to keep funding its war machine
- Ukraine, in the four years since it was invaded by Russia, has received US intelligence to help defend against incoming missiles from Russia as well as to help Kyiv hit certain Russian targets
DORAL, Florida: President Donald Trump said Saturday that it was inconsequential if Russia has provided Iran with information to help Tehran target US military personnel and assets in the Middle East as the week-old war rages.
The president dismissed the import of such information-sharing after he attended the dignified transfer for six Army reservists who were killed in a drone strike in Kuwait the day after the US and Israel launched a war on Iran that has unsettled the global economy.
Trump stopped short of confirming reports by The Associated Press and other news outlets that US intelligence officials believe Russia has provided Iran with such targeting information. But if Moscow is passing on such details, he said Iran was getting little out of it.
“If you take a look at what’s happened to Iran in the last week, if they’re getting information, it’s not helping them much,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One as he flew to Miami, where he’s spending the rest of the weekend.
The president also waved off a question about how Russia assisting Iran in such a way might affect his view of the US-Russia relationship.
“They’d say we do it against them,” Trump responded. “Wouldn’t they say that we do it against them?”
Ukraine, in the four years since it was invaded by Russia, has received US intelligence to help defend against incoming missiles from Russia as well as to help Kyiv hit certain Russian targets.
Downplaying the significance of Russia handing off battlespace intelligence to Iran came after the US Treasury Department announced earlier this week that it was temporarily allowing India to keep buying crude oil and petroleum products from Russia for a month, until April 4.
The administration decision to grant the world’s most populous country a temporary exemption faced bipartisan blowback. Critics charge that Trump was giving Russia a break that will provide Moscow with badly needed revenue as it looks to keep funding its war machine.
Rep. Don Bacon, R-Nebraska, condemned the move, saying in a post on X that “weakness toward Russia is appalling.”
Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., in his own X post directed at Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, also decried the administration’s decision.
“Reverse your decision to lift oil sanctions on Russia. It is traitorous conduct for you to help Russia,” Lieu said. “Meanwhile, Russia is assisting Iran in targeting American troops.”
Trump has decided to give India leeway on oil purchases from Russia as global oil prices surge and investors across sectors worry about how long the Iran war will last.
The waiver for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government followed Trump announcing weeks ago that he was cutting tariffs on India after their officials agreed to reduce its reliance on cheap Russian crude.
India has taken advantage of reduced Russian oil prices as much of the world has sought to isolate Moscow for its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The price of oil has surged higher and shows no signs of halting a week into a war that the US and Israel launched and has widened through the Middle East as Tehran strikes back. Ships that carry roughly 20 million barrels of oil a day are unable to safely pass through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Arabian Gulf that is bordered on its north side by Iran.
The shipping disruption and damage to key Middle East oil and gas facilities has interrupted supplies from some of the world’s largest oil producers.
Asked whether he was willing to take other steps to ease oil prices, Trump said that “if there were some, I would do it, just to take a little of the pressure off.”
He appeared Saturday to wave off, at least for now, the possibility of tapping the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve, saying the US has a “lot of oil.”
The reserve — a supply of oil that the US government can tap in case of emergencies — held more than 415 million barrels as of the end of last month, up from about 395 million barrels at this time in 2025. In total, when full, the SPR can hold more than 700 million barrels.
“We’ve got a lot of oil. Our country has a tremendous amount,” Trump said. “There’s a lot of oil out there. That’ll get healed very quickly.”
