TIANJIN: Russian President Vladimir Putin praised Turkiye’s mediation attempts around the Ukraine war at a meeting with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in China on Monday.
“I’m confident that Turkiye’s special role in these matters will continue to be in demand,” the Russian president said during talks with Erdogan on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit.
Putin added that the three rounds of direct talks with Ukraine in Istanbul have made some progress on the humanitarian track.
The talks have failed to yield a breakthrough over Russia’s three-and-a-half-year invasion and resulted only in exchanges of prisoners and soldiers’ bodies.
The warring sides have radically different positions and Ukraine has accused Russia of sending low-level officials with no real decision-making power to the Istanbul talks.
Russia has called on Ukraine to effectively cede four regions that Moscow claims to have annexed, a demand Kyiv has called unacceptable.
US President Donald Trump has called for a meeting between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but Moscow said it was too early to do so before key issues are resolved.
Russia’s full-scale invasion, launched in February 2022, has ravaged swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine, killing tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians.
Putin meets Erdogan, praises Turkiye’s mediation efforts on Ukraine
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Putin meets Erdogan, praises Turkiye’s mediation efforts on Ukraine
Second doctor in Matthew Perry overdose case sentenced to home confinement
- Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October
- Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service
LOS ANGELES: A second California doctor was sentenced on Tuesday to eight months of home confinement for illegally supplying “Friends” star Matthew Perry with ketamine, the powerful sedative that caused the actor’s fatal drug overdose in a hot tub in 2023.
Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October to a single felony count of conspiracy to distribute the prescription anesthetic and surrendered his medical license in November.
Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service. As part of his plea agreement, Chavez admitted to selling ketamine to another physician Dr. Salvador Plasencia, 44, who in turn supplied the drug to Perry, though not the dose that ultimately killed the performer. Plasencia, who pleaded guilty to four counts of unlawful drug distribution, was sentenced earlier this month to 2 1/2 years behind bars.
He and Chavez were the first two of five people convicted in connection with Perry’s ketamine-induced death to be sent off to prison.
The three others scheduled to be sentenced in the coming weeks — Jasveen Sangha, 42, a drug dealer known as the “Ketamine Queen;” a go-between dealer Erik Fleming, 56; and Perry’s former personal assistant, Iwamasa, 60.
Sangha admitted to supplying the ketamine dose that killed Perry, and Iwamasa acknowledged injecting Perry with it. It was Iwamasa who later found Perry, aged 54, face down and lifeless, in the jacuzzi of his Los Angeles home on October 28, 2023.
An autopsy report concluded the actor died from the acute effects of ketamine,” which combined with other factors in causing him to lose consciousness and drown.
Perry had publicly acknowledged decades of substance abuse, including the years he starred as Chandler Bing on the hit 1990s NBC television series “Friends.”
According to federal law enforcement officials, Perry had been receiving ketamine infusions for treatment of depression and anxiety at a clinic where he became addicted to the drug.
When doctors there refused to increase his dosage, he turned to unscrupulous providers elsewhere willing to exploit Perry’s drug dependency as a way to make quick money, authorities said. Ketamine is a short-acting anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties that is sometimes prescribed to treat depression and other psychiatric disorders. It also has seen widespread abuse as an illicit party drug.
