KYIV, April 22 (Reuters) – Ukraine has asked Turkey to host a meeting between President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Russian President Vladimir Putin, its top diplomat said, as Kyiv seeks to reinvigorate stalling peace talks.
“We asked the Turks about it, we asked some other capitals,” Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in comments to reporters on Tuesday that were cleared for release on Wednesday.
He added that Ukraine would be ready to consider any place other than Belarus or Russia for a meeting with Putin, which Zelenskiy has long sought to try to hasten a resolution of the more than four-year war.
Belarus is a close ally of Russia and allowed Moscow to use Belarusian territory to launch its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Sybiha did not say how Ankara had responded to the proposal.
“We addressed the Turks specifically,” he said. “But if another capital, besides Moscow and Belarus, organises such a meeting, we will go.”
The Kremlin previously said it is willing to host Zelenskiy in Moscow, where the Ukrainian leader has said he will not go.
Separately, Sybiha said that he had already exchanged written messages with Anita Orban, who will become Hungary’s new foreign minister when the new government, which won the election there earlier this month, takes power.
(Reporting by Max Hunder; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Thomas Derpinghaus)
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