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Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan held a series of high-level phone calls Monday with his counterparts from the United States, Russia, and France to discuss the upcoming Russia-Ukraine peace talks scheduled to take place in Istanbul on May 15.
Fidan spoke Monday evening with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, with both sides reviewing the latest diplomatic efforts to broker peace between Moscow and Kyiv, according to Turkish Foreign Ministry sources.
The call came just days before Russia and Ukraine are set to meet in Istanbul for their first formal peace talks in more than three years. The planned summit follows Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s acceptance of Moscow’s proposal to resume direct negotiations.
Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed the direct meeting as a counteroffer to a 30-day ceasefire plan advanced by Kyiv and its allies over the weekend — a proposal Ukraine said Moscow “completely ignored” on Monday. The war, now in its third year, has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced millions, with Russian forces currently controlling roughly one-fifth of Ukraine, including the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014.
Fidan also spoke with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The two discussed bilateral relations and regional developments, including the conflicts in Syria, Gaza, and Ukraine, Turkish diplomatic sources said.
During the conversation, Fidan stressed the importance of lifting international sanctions on Syria to support the country’s stability and economic recovery. They also addressed the release of Israeli-American citizen Edan Alexander by Hamas, as well as the planned Istanbul peace summit.
The ministers reviewed details of Rubio’s upcoming visit to Türkiye for the Informal NATO Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, set to take place in the southern city of Antalya on May 14–15.
In a separate phone call Monday, Fidan and French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot discussed preparations for the Russia-Ukraine peace talks. Turkish sources said the two exchanged views on ongoing diplomatic efforts to end the war.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said he is ready to host the talks and urged both sides to seize the “window of opportunity” to reach a settlement.
Erdogan welcomed Russian President Putin’s support for restarting the process from where it had previously paused in Istanbul, reaffirming Türkiye’s commitment to mediating peace.
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