ANKARA
\nTurkish President Tayyip Erdogan told \u200cUkrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy that attacks by Russia and Ukraine on commercial vessels in the Black Sea were inexplicable and steps must be taken to stop these, according to a readout from his office on Thursday.
\nNATO member T\u00fcrkiye, which has maintained cordial ties with both Moscow and Kyiv since Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, has repeatedly urged the warring sides to stop attacks in the Black Sea.
\n\u201cDuring the meeting, President Erdogan stated that Turkey was ready to do all it can for the Ukraine-Russia war \u200cto end with \u200clasting peace, that we will continue our \u200cefforts to revive direct negotiations,\u201d the Turkish presidency said in a statement.
\n\u201cOur President stated that a step must be taken regarding navigational safety in the Black Sea, that attacks on commercial vessels are inexplicable, and that we expect the sides to act responsibly,\u201d it added. Ankara has said it has sent offers to Ukraine and Russia to stop the attacks, some of which have targeted Turkish-owned vessels and killed \u200cits citizens, and that it \u200cis awaiting their response.
\nIt has said a solution must be found \u200cso grain shipments can be carried out safely from the region. Earlier, \u200cZelenskiy told leaders at a \u201cCrimean Platform\u201d summit on the sidelines of the General Assembly that Kyiv was ready for a maritime truce in the Black Sea based on proposals such as those put forward by \u200cEgypt, India and Turkey.
\nTop wheat importers in Asia, the Middle East and Africa which count on the Black Sea region for wheat have been finding it hard to secure supplies. Global wheat prices have soared. Turkey and the United Nations helped to mediate the so-called Black Sea Grain Initiative in July 2022 to allow for the safe export of Ukrainian grain amid the war, but Russia withdrew from the agreement the following year, complaining that its own food and fertilizer exports faced serious obstacles.
\nAnkara has provided Kyiv with military backing and voiced support for its territorial integrity, but refused to join Western sanctions on Moscow and maintained commercial ties with Russia. It has hosted previous rounds of direct talks between the sides and offered to mediate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ANKARA Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan told \u200cUkrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy that attacks by Russia and Ukraine on commercial vessels in the Black Sea were inexplicable and steps must be taken to stop these, according to a readout from his office on Thursday. NATO member T\u00fcrkiye, which has maintained cordial ties with both Moscow and Kyiv …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":103440,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103463"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103476,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103463\/revisions\/103476"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}