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Erdogan offers to mediate peace talks, Kremlin rules out the idea

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Erdogan offers to mediate peace talks, Kremlin rules out the idea
President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, attends a press conference during NATO Summit at LITEXPO Lithuanian Exhibition and Congress Center in Vilnius, Lithuania on July 12, 2023. (Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

At the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Kazakhstan, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan proposed to Russian President Vladimir Putin that Turkey could help mediate an end to the war.

Putin's spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, rejected the idea, stating that Erdogan could not serve as an intermediary, without giving specific reasons.

The SCO is an intergovernmental organization established by China and Russia in 2001 in Shanghai. It focuses on Eurasian political, economic, security, and defense issues. The 24th SCO meeting is taking place from July 3-4.

While Turkey is a NATO member, Erdogan has aimed to maintain positive relations with both Russia and Ukraine, previously securing a deal for safe grain shipments from Ukraine's Black Sea ports that lasted for a year.

Erdogan has previously offered to host peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow. The final rounds of unsuccessful peace talks in 2022 took place in the Turkish city of Antalya.

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Sonya Bandouil

North American news editor

Sonya Bandouil is a North American news editor for The Kyiv Independent. She previously worked in the fields of cybersecurity and translating, and she also edited for various journals in NYC. Sonya has a Master’s degree in Global Affairs from New York University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Music from the University of Houston, in Texas.

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