U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to to Antalya, Turkey, for a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting from May 14–16, where he is expected to address the war in Ukraine and push for stronger Allied defense commitments.
The Kremlin said the leaders held a detailed discussion about the Russian initiative and Erdogan expressed full support, reiterating Turkey’s readiness to provide a venue and assist in organizing the negotiations.
Erdogan told Macron that international cooperation is critical for initiating peace negotiations and the "sensitive implementation" of Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction processes, the Turkish Presidency reported.
The assault began around 2 a.m. on May 11, with Russian forces deploying 108 Shahed-type attack drones and decoy UAVs from multiple directions, Ukraine’s Air Force said.
"Think of the hundreds of thousands of lives that will be saved as this never ending 'bloodbath' hopefully comes to an end... I will continue to work with both sides to make sure that it happens."
U.S. State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce called for "concrete proposals from both sides" in order for Washington to "move forward" in peace negotiations.
"If they speak to each other in Russian, he doesn't know what they are saying," one Western official told NBC News. Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Russia, called Witkoff's approach "a very bad idea."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sept. 7, 2023. (Source: Volodymyr Zelensky / Telegram)
President Volodymyr Zelensky signed the updated law on national minorities, he said in his evening address on Nov. 3.
Changing the law was one of seven steps recommended by the European Commission in June 2022 for Ukraine's accession to the European Union.
On Sept. 21, Ukraine's parliament approved amendments to the law on national minorities to bring the rules and definitions in line with EU standards.
The law now allows for the publishing of advertisements in the language of a national minority within its community, as well as public and cultural events to be held in a minority language.
The law does not apply to the Russian language. Minority languages primarily refers to Romanian and Hungarian, which are spoken in some communities in western Ukraine.
The issue of national minorities has put Kyiv at odds with EU members Romania and Hungary in the past.
Budapest in particular has repeatedly accused Kyiv of oppressing the rights of Hungarian minorities that live in Ukraine.
In a diplomatic row that has gone on for years, Budapest has called Kyiv's language policies discriminatory and even threatened to block Ukraine's EU aspirations over the issue.
The 2001 Ukrainian census reported that around 150,000 Hungarians lived in Ukraine, though today this number is thought to be no higher than 80,000.
Martin Fornusek
