Progress has been made to resolve the conflict with Russia to enable a meeting between the presidents of the two countries, Ukraine's top negotiator said following the talks in Turkey on Tuesday.
"The results of today's meeting are sufficient for a meeting at the leaders' level," Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia said, raising the possibility of a meeting between Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin that Russia had shot down as recently as Monday as being "counterproductive".
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday said that direct talks between President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky would be "counterproductive". This comes as delegations prepared for Turkey-hosted talks on Moscow's military operation.
Putin "has said he has never refused to meet President Zelensky. The only thing that he considers fundamentally important is for these meetings to be well prepared", the Russian Foreign Minister said in televised comments, after Zelensky called for a meeting with his Russian counterpart.
