Arms supplier and peacemaker? Erdogan’s dubious role in the Ukraine conflict
Selenskyj receives Guterres and Erdogan for talks in Lviv
Ukrainian President Zelenskyy receives the Turkish head of state Erdogan and UN Secretary General Guterres in Lviv. Selenskyj’s expectations of the meeting should not be particularly high.
Ukrainian President Zelenskyy will meet Turkish President Erdogan and UN Secretary-General Guterres in Lviv on Thursday. Kyiv is probably less interested in a peace solution than in another question that will be decisive for the war.
Dhe Turkish head of state Recep Tayyip Erdogan has presented himself as the prince of peace for months, at least when it comes to Ukraine. After the first Russian invasion in 2014, the autocrat got involved as an advocate for the Crimean Tatars: an originally Turkic-speaking ethnic group that makes up a large minority in Turkey.
Although Erdogan did not recognize the annexation of Crimea, he did not participate in the West’s sanctions against Russia. In the autumn of last year, when Russia deployed its troops on the Ukrainian border, he then offered to mediate between Moscow and Kyiv. At the time, that sounded like overconfidence. Not many thought of war at the time – at least abroad.
But with the beginning of the invasion, Erdogan did successfully bring himself into play as a mediator. Thus, the two unsuccessful rounds of Russian-Ukrainian talks in March took place in Turkey, in Antalya and Istanbul.
end of July Turkey and the UN brokered a wheat deal with Russia and Ukraine, allowing Ukrainian grain to be exported across the Black Sea. So far, 24 ships have been able to exit Ukraine through the “wheat corridor,” allowing the country to resume exports after five months of enforced disruption.
Erdogan now wants to build on this in Lviv, during bilateral talks with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the trilateral meeting that UN Secretary General António Guterres will attend. After the most recent meeting with Putin in early August, Erdogan said he believed the crisis could be resolved at the negotiating table.
Measured by the course of the war, however, that sounds like a mere political phrase, because neither Russia nor Ukraine see themselves at a point where they have to negotiate at the moment.
Russia hopes to take control of the entire area of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in order to annex them along with the occupied territories in southern Ukraine. Kyiv is determined to prevent this and is preparing an offensive in the south.
International security guarantees planned
Selenskyj’s expectations of the meeting should not be particularly high. He will want to talk more about military cooperation with Turkey than diplomatic banter.
As early as next year, his government hopes to open its own factory for Bayraktar TB2 drones, and a plot of land has already been bought, Ukrainian ambassador to Turkey Vasyl Bodnar said in an interview.
Selenskyj, Erdogan and Guterres will still talk about a diplomatic solution. A few days ago, the Ukrainian Presidential Office said a group led by Presidential Office chief Andriy Yermak and ex-NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen was working on a document with recommendations for international security guarantees for Ukraine.
The meeting will hardly bring a breakthrough. But it will be an important step to draw more international attention to the conflict again.
According to UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric, both heads of state want to talk to Guterres about the situation around the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant and about a UN mission to investigate the murder of prisoners of war in the Russian-controlled Olenivka camp.
Guterres had already called Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Monday about the location of the nuclear power plant and the investigative mission.
