Could Israel or Turkey broker peace in Ukraine? | DW News

meanwhile israel israel appears to be emerging as a diplomatic dark horse on saturday prime minister naftali bennett became the first world leader to meet with vladimir putin since the invasion began the surprise meeting was followed by talks with ukrainian president zielinski bennett then traveled on to germany the second time this week that the two leaders met after schultz visited jerusalem on wednesday to discuss a diplomatic solution to the crisis bennett has offered to act as a mediator with israel maintaining good relations with both russia and ukraine for more let's bring in dw political correspondent benjamin alvarez gruber benjamin what do we know about the meeting between chancellor schultz and israel's naftali bennett it was a 90 minutes talk that they had we don't have more details of how these talks between israel's prime minister and the russian president vladimir putin went but both of them underlined the commitment and said that they will do anything that they can so everything in their strength and the war in ukraine as soon as possible why did bennett take the initiative to mediate in this conflict israel is in a quite interesting position because they have warm and very good relations both to kiev and also to moscow but there are two interests here contrasting interest when we look at israel on one side of course it wants to belong to the western alliance one to show itself close to the us but on the other side there's a known security risk as well as it has a military cooperation with russia in syria so that's why many see israel and zelensky also ask israel to try to be a mediator and try to find common ground between russia and ukraine and of course both leaders so israel's prime minister bennett and olaf trolls will be closely following the third round of t peace talks between russia and ukraine that is expected to take place on monday benjamin alvarez gruber thanks very much turkey's president erdogan has held a phone call with russian counterpart vladimir putin the turkish leader was expected to urge putin to agree to a cease-fire in ukraine turkey also has close relations with both moscow and kiev but recently moved to limit the passage of russian warships into the black sea under the montreux convention ankara can block ships from passing through its straits during wartime but can't prevent them from returning to their home ports dw's dorian jones is in istanbul forest dorian what do you know about that call between uh president erdogan and putin well the call has finished uh but there's been no readout of what actually happened in those talks neither moscow nor ankara released any information as of yet but uh turkish president uh rejected one's uh spokesman ibrahim cullen speaking to reporters on saturday said that erdogan in those talks will call for an end to hostilities by russia and failing that at least to haul these growing international calls for a ceasefire to allow humanitarian corridors to be established to into these besieged cities all across ukraine where then humanitarian aid can be delivered and civilians can exit and that will be the message from erdogan apparently will was delivered to putin along with the fact that according to cullen the turkish position is there can be no resolution to this conflict until there's a cessation of uh of conf of the conflict and uh turkey is trying to position itself as as a possible mediator ever since the conflict started ankara has been trying to position itself to mediate between both ukraine and russia as president erdogan has close relations with both those countries presidents but as of yet uh putin has rebuffed those efforts by turkey could these latest developments be seen as turkey taking aside i mean as you say the nato country has really close relations with ukraine and russia well that's the question that i mean this conflict really has put turkey in a very tight position uh he's been walking a tight rope trying to balance relations with both sides uh on the one side turkey hasn't imposed uh sanctions against russia and has in fact rejected them uh saying that they are counterproductive uh and also turkey has not closed his airspace to russian civil planes despite most of his western allies doing that but at the same time turkey has taken a tough stance against russia it's closed its istanbul bossarous waterway to russian ships on top of that it has been supplying a lot of sophisticated weapons to ukraine in particular it's uh noteworthy uh drones which have impacted russian military in a very big and significant way so i think that their expectation is that ultimately turkey is siding with ukraine and i think turkey's western allies will be looking at this as a possibility of breaching turkey's relationship with russia and the u.s deputy secretary of state wendy sherman was in turkey on saturday holding talks over ukraine dw's dorian jones for us in istanbul thank you and in other news u.s secretary of state anthony blinken is in moldova to pledge american support to the country which has nearly seen nearly a quarter of a million refugees from ukraine pouring in during his visit lincoln also said that the united states was working actively on a deal with poland to supply ukraine with fighter jets tens of thousands of people around the world have been protesting against the russian invasion of ukraine demonstrations condemning russia's president putin took place in cities across the united states as well as in paris london and other european capitals with no end in sight to the war the number of refugees keeps climbing the un says the total figure of people who fled ukraine has now topped one and a half million it calls it the fastest growing refugee crisis since world war ii

Channel: DW News

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Length: 6min 18sec (378 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 06 2022