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Asharq Al-Awsat
Asharq Al-Awsat
World
Asharq Al-Awsat

Kremlin: No Basis for Meeting Between Putin, Zelenskiy

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov attends a joint news conference of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in Moscow, Russia February 18, 2022. Sputnik/Sergey Guneev/Kremlin via REUTERS

The Kremlin said on Monday there was no basis for a meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian presidents at the moment.

In response to a question about Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan's offers to broker peace talks, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call that Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskiy could meet only after negotiators from both sides had "done their homework".

Negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv have been stalled for months, with each side blaming the other for a lack of progress.

"The Ukrainian delegation has gone off the radar, there is no negotiation process now," Peskov said on Monday, Reuters reported.

"As for a meeting between Presidents Putin and Zelenskiy, it is possible only after all the homework has been done by the delegations. This is missing, so there are no necessary prerequisites for the meeting," he added.

Peskov also said that Western countries with influence over Ukraine should push Kyiv to stop shelling the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe's largest.

"We expect the countries that have absolute influence on the Ukrainian leadership to use this influence in order to rule out the continuation of such shelling."

Both Moscow and Kyiv have blamed each other for strikes in recent days near the power station, which is in territory controlled by Russian forces.

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