Russia Admits Possibility Of Meeting Between Putin And Zelenskyy

Russia admits the possibility of a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Ukrainian News Agency learned this from a statement of the Russian edition RIA Novosti with reference to the words of Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov.

"No one denies this (the possibility of a meeting of heads of states). The President (of Russia) says that he is ready to meet with anyone for the sake of business, but this requires an understanding of what will come out and what will be discussed. There is no such understanding yet," Peskov said.

According to him, the Russian side would like such a meeting to take place 2 years ago and take place regularly, but at the moment, for its organization, it is necessary that previous agreements be implemented.

“We would like this meeting to take place a few years ago, and we believe that it should have taken place a long time ago and that they should be held regularly.

But in order for this to happen, it is necessary that something from the previous agreements be carried out. We are satisfied that the consultation process is underway on a unilateral basis, we are satisfied that the long-awaited next round of work of our political advisers has taken place, but let's still take a sober look at the situation," Peskov said.

The press secretary also stressed that it is now difficult to talk about some kind of summit meetings, because such meetings should be prepared, they should not be spontaneous, fruitless and inconsistent, but "so far, the preparation of the Russian Federation is lame."

As for the initiative to organize such a meeting in Turkey, Peskov noted that "there is no understanding here yet, therefore there is no practical discussion on this matter either."

However, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will offer just such an option for a meeting between the leaders of Ukraine and Russia.

According to the CNN Turkish service, Erdogan, in turn, during his communication with the media, stressed that Putin had accepted an invitation to visit Turkey upon his return from China, the date is being specified.

"Our invitation for Mr. Putin to visit Turkey after returning from China received a positive response. Now we will set a date. Then, I hope, we will hold this meeting in order to invite Mr. Putin and Mr. Zelenskyy at a high level. Our agreement with Mr. Zelenskyy is in this direction. I believe that if we can achieve this at a high level, without reducing it to lower levels, then the result that we get from here will enable a new formation in the region. This hope was born in me during meeting with Zelenskyy. I hope it will end well," the Turkish head of state said.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, on February 3, Zelenskyy thanked Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for the initiative to become a mediator in negotiations with Russia.

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