Erdoğan to meet Putin in Astana: Turkish official

Türkiye on Oct. 11 called for a ceasefire in Ukraine ahead of a meeting between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in the Kazakh capital Astana.

"A ceasefire must be established as soon as possible. The sooner the better," Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said in an interview with the TVnet broadcaster.

The Russian attacks jeopardized the diplomatic efforts which aimed to solve the Ukrainian crisis Çavuşoğlu said.

"Unfortunately [both sides] have quickly moved away from diplomacy" since the talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in Istanbul in March, he stated.

"As the Ukraine-Russian war drags on, unfortunately, the situation gets worse and more complicated," added the Turkish top diplomat.

Erdoğan, who has a good working relationship with Putin despite disagreements on several issues including in Syria, will meet with the Russian leader in Astana on Oct. 13, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Oct. 11.

Lavrov said that Moscow was open to talks with the West on the Ukraine war but had yet to receive any serious proposal to negotiate.

The Turkish president has long sought to bring together Kyiv and Moscow for truce talks since Russia attacked Ukraine on Feb. 24. NATO member Türkiye, which has stayed neutral throughout the conflict in Ukraine, has good relations with its two Black Sea neighbors, Russia and Ukraine.

Greece disturbed by Türkiye's global position

Elaborating on Greece's "provocative" actions against Türkiye in the recent period, Çavuşoğlu said, "Greece is very disturbed by the fact that Türkiye is not only a regional but also a global actor."

He emphasized that Greece violated the non-military status of the...