ANKARA: Turkiye’s foreign minister on Monday said Ankara backed a US initiative to end the Ukraine-Russia conflict but stressed that talks should involve both warring sides.
Moscow and Washington have begun a direct dialogue in recent weeks, against a backdrop of rapprochement between new US President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
“We attach great importance to the new US initiative as a result-oriented approach. We believe that a solution can be reached through negotiations in which both sides participate,” Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told a news conference with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Ankara.
Lavrov’s visit comes on the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a week after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky traveled to the Turkish capital.
Lavrov said Russia is ready for negotiations on the Ukraine war but will only stop fighting when a peace settlement “suits” Moscow.
“We will stop hostilities only when these negotiations produce a firm and sustainable result that suits the Russian Federation,” he said.
Russian and US officials held talks in Saudi Arabia in a meeting denounced by Zelensky, who fears an agreement reached without him.
Fidan, whose country hosted talks between Ukraine and Russia during the start of the war, said Turkiye was ready to take any step that would help bring peace.
“Turkiye is always prepared to assume any facilitating or accelerating role... Our goal is to end this devastating war as soon as possible and to heal the wounds in the region,” he said.
NATO member Turkiye has sought to maintain good relations with its warring Black Sea neighbors, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pitching himself as a key go-between and possible peacemaker between the two.
Ankara has provided drones for Ukraine but shied away from Western-led sanctions on Moscow.
Lavrov is due to meet with Erdogan later in the day.
Turkiye says Ukraine-Russia talks should involve ‘both sides’
https://arab.news/jcrtj
Turkiye says Ukraine-Russia talks should involve ‘both sides’
- Moscow and Washington have begun a direct dialogue in recent weeks
- Russian and US officials held talks in Saudi Arabia in a meeting denounced by Volodymyr Zelensky
Zohran Mamdani tells immigrant New Yorkers about their right not to comply with ICE
- “ICE is legally allowed to lie to you, but you have the right to remain silent. If you’re being detained, you may always ask, ‘Am I free to go?’ repeatedly until they answer you,” said Mamdani, who will be sworn in as mayor on Jan 1
NEW YORK: New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani posted a video to social media on Sunday explaining immigrants’ right to refuse to speak to or comply with agents from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, days after federal agents carried out a raid in Manhattan.
In the video, Mamdani vowed to protect the city’s 3 million immigrants, saying, “We can all stand up to ICE if you know your rights.”
He explained that people in the US can chose not to speak to federal immigration agents, film them without interfering and refuse their requests to enter private spaces. ICE agents cannot enter spaces like a home, school or private area of a workplace without a judicial warrant signed by a judge, Mamdani said.
“ICE is legally allowed to lie to you, but you have the right to remain silent. If you’re being detained, you may always ask, ‘Am I free to go?’ repeatedly until they answer you,” said Mamdani, who will be sworn in as mayor on Jan 1.
His comments came a week after demonstrators gathered as ICE attempted to detain people on Canal Street near New York’s Chinatown. A similar immigration sweep in the same neighborhood last October was also met with protests.
“New York will always welcome immigrants, and I will fight each and every day to protect, support, and celebrate our immigrant brothers and sisters,” Mamdani said in Sunday’s video.
Weeks earlier, Mamdani had a surprisingly cordial Oval Office meeting with President Donald Trump, whose administration is carrying out federal immigration enforcement operations in several US cities, most recently in New Orleans.
