Kiev states Istanbul peace discussions reached dead-end

(MENAFN) Ukraine’s First Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Kislitsa has stated that the format of direct peace talks with Russia held in Istanbul has "practically exhausted itself," blaming what he called Moscow’s uncompromising demands for the breakdown in progress.

In an interview published Friday, Kislitsa explained that although two rounds of negotiations had taken place this year in Türkiye, the format has failed to yield results. These talks marked the first direct engagement between the two sides since Ukraine unilaterally walked away from negotiations in 2022.

According to Kislitsa, Russian President Vladimir Putin is using the talks to push for Ukraine’s surrender with the backing of the United States.

“Putin’s mandate is to force capitulation. Their logic is the opposite of ours,” he said, describing Russia’s stance as even more extreme than “maximalist.”

He outlined Ukraine’s position going into the negotiations: “Our mandate had three points: first, ceasefire.” He added that the second goal was “to create the conditions” for a direct meeting between Putin and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, and the third involved “confidence-building measures” such as humanitarian issues and prisoner exchanges.

While Putin has not explicitly rejected the idea of meeting with Zelensky, he has pointed out that any agreements signed by the Ukrainian leader could lack legitimacy, as Zelensky’s presidential term officially ended in May 2024.

Kislitsa emphasized the importance of a face-to-face meeting between the two leaders, citing the “complexity” and “depth” of the war. He also accused Russia of trying to “bureaucratize” the peace process.

“We saw this before in the endless Minsk process groups,” the diplomat claimed. “Endless meetings – but there were no results.”

The Minsk Agreements of 2014 and 2015, backed by Western powers, were intended to halt fighting between Ukrainian forces and the self-proclaimed republics in Donetsk and Lugansk. However, both former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French President Francois Hollande later acknowledged that the deals were used to buy time for Ukraine to strengthen its military capabilities.

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