Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday conveyed to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin his wish for the war in Ukraine to «end as soon as possible», in a conversation in which they also discussed issues related to energy, the fight against terrorism and the agreement for the export of grain from Ukrainian ports.
The Turkish Presidency has indicated in a statement published on its account on the social network Twitter that Erdogan has communicated to Putin his «sincere desire» for an agreement for the end of the war and has praised the results obtained through the agreement on grain, reached in July with the mediation of Ankara and the European Union (EU).
The Kremlin has so far not commented on the content of the conversation between Putin and Erdogan, who is scheduled to speak later Sunday with Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky.
On the other hand, Erdogan has denounced the «terrorist attacks» by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Kurdish-Syrian militia People’s Protection Units (YPG) and demanded the full implementation of the agreement reached in Sochi in 2019.
Thus, he stressed that this agreement included measures for «the withdrawal of terrorists from the border» and reiterated «the importance and priority of clearing the area in a space of up to 30 kilometers along the entire border (between Turkey and Syria)».
Turkey launched Operation ‘Sword Claw’ on November 21, a bombing campaign against Kurdish groups following the November 13 bombing in the Turkish city of Istanbul, which left six dead and more than 80 wounded.
The Turkish government has blamed the attack on the PKK and said that the main suspect had received orders from the YPG – the main member of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – although both the PKK and the SDF have disassociated themselves from the attack and expressed their condolences to the victims.
