Mevlüt Çauşoğlu: Some NATO countries want the Ukrainian crisis to continue

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çauşoğlu said that some NATO countries want the Russian-Ukrainian war to continue, with the aim of exhausting Russia.

This came in statements made by the minister during his participation in an interview with the local CNN Turk TV channel, in which he discussed the Russian-Ukrainian war, according to the official news website TRT News.

“But I was convinced after the NATO foreign ministers meeting that there are some members (whom he did not name) who want this war to continue, NATO members, with the aim of exhausting Russia”, he said.

He stressed the importance of not seeing Ukraine as an arena for competition, adding: “The conditions on the ground are becoming more difficult, and negotiations are becoming more difficult as well. Therefore, we should not attribute the continuation of the war to countries that do not want to end the war only”.

On the possibility of a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky in Turkey, Çavuşoğlu said that the statements of the two presidents in this regard are positive about the possibility of a meeting, once the appropriate conditions are achieved.

Turkey, which enjoys good relations with Russia and Ukraine, is weighing in to resolve the Moscow-Kiev crisis and reach a ceasefire agreement.

Ankara entered the Russian-Ukrainian crisis early on and is making diplomatic efforts to defuse the war that began on February 24.

On March 29, Turkey hosted peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations, during which the Ukrainian side proposed a system of security guarantees from several countries, including Turkey.

This is the second round of negotiations between the two sides, to be hosted by Turkey, after a first round that brought together the foreign ministers of the two countries, Sergey Lavrov of Russia and Dmytro Kuleba of Ukraine, on March 10th.

Russian President Vladimir Putin describes the offensive in Ukraine, which began on February 24, as a special operation aimed at disarming the country and uprooting what he calls dangerous nationalists.

Western countries describe the attack as a war that Moscow has chosen to wage, and have imposed sanctions on Russia to cripple its economy.

Since February 24th, thousands of people have been killed, and nearly 10 million Ukrainians have been displaced internally and externally, according to the UN.