LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — Turkey’s leader and the head of the United Nations met in Ukraine on Thursday with President Volodymr Zelenskyy in a high-powered attempt to end a nearly six-month-old war. But little immediate progress was reported.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he would follow up with Russian President Vladimir Putin, given that most of the matters discussed would require the Kremlin’s agreement.
With the meetings held at such a high level — it was Erdogan’s first visit to Ukraine since the war began, and UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ second — some hoped for progress, if not toward a global peace, at least in specific issues. But none was obvious.
Meeting in the western city of Lviv, far from the front lines, the leaders discussed expanding prisoner-of-war exchanges and arranging the visit of United Nations atomic energy experts and helping to secure the largest nuclear power plant of Europe, which is in the midst of a fierce struggle. has raised the fear of catastrophe.
Erdogan has positioned himself as an intermediary in efforts to stop the fighting. Although Turkey is a member of NATO, its faltering economy depends on Russia for trade and has tried to strike a middle ground between the two combatants.
The Turkish president urged the international community after the talks not to abandon diplomatic efforts to end the war that has killed tens of thousands and forced more than 10 million Ukrainians from their homes.
He repeated that Turkey is ready to act as a “mediator and facilitator” and added: “I am convinced that the war will end at the negotiating table.”
In March, Turkey hosted talks in Istanbul between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators that failed to end hostilities.
Meanwhile, on the battlefield, at least 17 people were killed overnight in heavy Russian missile attacks in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, Ukrainian authorities said Thursday.
The Russian military said it attacked a base for foreign mercenaries in Kharkiv, killing 90. There was no immediate comment from the Ukrainian side.
In the latest incident on Russian soil near the border with Ukraine, an ammunition dump caught fire in a village in the Belgorod region, the regional governor said. No casualties were reported. Video posted online, the authenticity of which could not be verified, showed orange flames and black smoke, with the sound of multiple explosions.
Elsewhere, Russian officials reported that air defenses shot down drones on the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula in Kerch and near the Belbek airfield in the Black Sea port of Sevastopol. Explosions in recent weeks on the peninsula have destroyed warplanes and caused other damage to military airfields.
Escalating international tensions, Russia deployed warplanes carrying state-of-the-art hypersonic missiles to its Kaliningrad region, an enclave surrounded by NATO members Lithuania and Poland.
One of the main topics of the talks in Lviv was the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine. Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of bombing the complex.
Condemning the Kremlin for what he called “nuclear blackmail”, Zelenskyy demanded that Russian troops leave the plant and that a team from the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency be allowed in.
“The area must be demilitarized, and we must say it like it is: any potential harm to Zaporizhzhia is suicide,” Guterres told a news conference.
Erdogan also expressed concern about the fighting around the plant, saying: “We don’t want to live another Chernobyl,” a reference to the world’s worst nuclear accident in Ukraine in 1986.
Zelenskyy and the UN chief agreed on arrangements for an IAEA mission to the plant on Thursday, according to the president’s website. But it was not immediately clear whether the Kremlin would agree to the terms. As for the troop withdrawal, a Russian Foreign Ministry official earlier said it would leave the plant “vulnerable.”
Fears rose Thursday when Russian and Ukrainian authorities accused each other of conspiring to attack the site and then blame the other side. Late Thursday, several Ukrainian bombings hit the town where the power plant is located, a Russian official said.
Guterres used the Lviv talks to nominate General Carlos dos Santos Cruz of Brazil to lead a previously announced UN fact-finding mission to Olenivka prison, where 53 Ukrainian prisoners of war died in an explosion in July Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other for the explosion.
Also on the agenda Thursday: increase in cereal exports. Earlier this summer, the UN and Turkey brokered a deal allowing Ukraine to export 22 million tonnes of corn and other grain stuck in its Black Sea ports since the Russian invasion.
The blockade has worsened global food shortages, pushed up prices and raised fears of famine, particularly in Africa. However, even with the deal, only a trickle of Ukraine’s grain has managed to get out – about 600,000 tonnes according to Turkey’s estimate.
Zelenskyy said Thursday that he proposed expanding the shipments. Guterres, for his part, highlighted the success of the operation, but added: “There is still a long way to go for this to translate into the daily lives of people in their local bakery and in their markets.”
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Suzan Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey. Robert Badendieck contributed from Istanbul.
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