Türkiye predicts Ukraine conflict will not end this year
(Baonghean.vn) - Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan expressed concern about the possibility of war spreading in the region.
According to RT news agency, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan recently said that the Ukraine conflict is unlikely to be resolved soon and is likely to escalate further.
In an interview with CNN Turk on March 18, the foreign minister stated that the hostility between Moscow and Kiev has "turned into a war of attrition", which he said is a serious problem that worries Türkiye.
“Strategically, we are concerned about the spread of conflict to this region,” Mr. Fidan said, adding that the process “starts with words and then moves into action.” He warned that Europe “should be more worried about the situation in Ukraine than we are.”
Commenting on the prospects of reaching a peace agreement, the minister said, “there is no basis to expect developments on this issue in 2024. We do not see this possibility in the near future.”
However, he noted that Türkiye has taken several initiatives to end the conflict and is one of the few countries in NATO, the EU and other international platforms calling for peace. According to Fidan, Ankara is well-positioned to pursue this policy because it has good relations with both sides of the conflict.
Since the start of the Ukrainian conflict in February 2022, Türkiye has repeatedly called on Moscow and Kiev to end hostilities, offering a venue for peace talks that year. While the talks – which revolved around Ukraine’s neutrality – initially made some progress, Kiev later withdrew from the talks, Moscow claimed that the talks were derailed by then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who advised Ukraine to continue fighting. Johnson, for his part, has denied this.
On March 15, Mr. Fidan also stressed that it was time to “separate the issue of Ukrainian sovereignty from the ceasefire” to prevent conflict, stressing that this did not mean that Kiev would recognize Russia’s territorial interests.
However, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky signed a decree banning negotiations with the current leadership in Moscow in the fall of 2022, after four former Ukrainian regions overwhelmingly voted in referendums to join Russia. President Vladimir Putin said Moscow was ready to negotiate with Ukraine as long as Kiev and its Western backers were serious about lasting peace with Moscow, not just because they had “run out of ammunition.”
