ANKARA (Reuters) – President Tayyip Erdogan told Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Ankara on Thursday that Turkey was ready to host him and Russia’s Vladimir Putin for peace talks “when they are ready”, his office said.
Erdogan met Zelenskiy in the Turkish capital after Putin had sent a second-tier team of negotiators to hold peace talks in Istanbul, spurning Kyiv’s challenge to go there in person to meet Zelenskiy.
In a statement, the presidency said Erdogan stressed the need to keep dialogue channels between the sides open given the “historic opportunity” to start peace talks, and that they should meet on their minimum common ground.
(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Jonathan Spicer)
