Turkey says Russia, Ukraine are 'close to an agreement'

Lviv, Ukraine

TURKEY on Sunday (Mar 20) said that Russia and Ukraine have made progress on their negotiations to halt the ongoing conflict, and added the 2 warring sides were close to an agreement.

"Of course, it is not an easy thing to come to terms with while the war is going on, while civilians are killed, but we would like to say that momentum is still gained," Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in live comments from the southern Turkish province of Antalya. "We see that the parties are close to an agreement."

Cavusoglu last week visited Russia and Ukraine as Turkey, which has strong bonds with the 2 sides, has tried to position itself as a mediator. Ankara hosted the foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine in Antalya last week.

Cavusoglu said Turkey was in contact with the negotiating teams from the 2 countries but he refused to divulge the details of the talks as "we play an honest mediator and facilitator role".

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly appealed for peace, urging Russia to accept "meaningful" talks for an end to the invasion. "This is the time to meet, to talk, time for renewing territorial integrity and fairness for Ukraine," he said, in his latest video posted on social media on Saturday.

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Zelensky earlier said Russia's siege of the port city of Mariupol was "a terror that will be remembered for centuries to come", while local authorities said thousands of residents there had been taken by force across the border.

"Over the past week, several thousand Mariupol residents were deported onto the Russian territory," the city council said in a statement on its Telegram channel late on Saturday (Mar 19).

Russian news agencies have said buses have carried several hundred people Moscow calls refugees from Mariupol to Russia in recent days.

The council also said Russian forces bombed a Mariupol art school on Saturday in which 400 residents had taken shelter, but the number of casualties was not yet known. Russia denies targeting civilians.

Many of Mariupol's 400,000 residents have been trapped for more than 2 weeks as Russia seeks to take control of the city, which would help secure a land corridor to the Crimea peninsula that Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

Putin calls the assault on Ukraine, which began on Feb 24, a "special operation" aimed at demilitarising the country and rooting out people he terms dangerous nationalists. Western nations call it an aggressive war of choice and have imposed sanctions on Russia aimed at crippling its economy.

The Mariupol bombardment has left buildings in rubble and severed central supplies of electricity, heating and water, according to local authorities. Rescue workers were still searching for survivors in a Mariupol theatre that local authorities say was flattened by Russian air strikes on Wednesday. Russia denies hitting the theatre.

Zelensky said the siege of Mariupol was a war crime. "To do this to a peaceful city... is a terror that will be remembered for centuries to come," he said in a broadcast.

Air raid sirens sounded across Ukrainian cities on Sunday and Russia's defence ministry said cruise missiles were launched from ships in the Black Sea and Caspian Sea, as well as hypersonic missiles from Crimean airspace.

At least 902 civilians have been killed and 1,459 injured in Ukraine as at midnight local time on Mar 19, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) said on Sunday.

Ukraine's military said on Sunday that Moscow's combat losses included 14,700 personnel and 476 tanks.

Meanwhile, Russia's central bank has allowed a limited number of additional financial market operations over the next 2 weeks, as it tentatively eases restrictions linked to the Ukraine conflict.

Stocks and bonds last traded on the Moscow Exchange on Feb 25, the day after Russia invaded Ukraine, after which the central bank curbed trading as Western sanctions threw markets into turmoil. It allowed rouble trading to continue, with the currency slumping to record lows against the US dollar and euro.

On Friday, the central bank said trading in OFZ government bonds would restart on Monday. It is yet to say when trading in instruments like stocks can resume. AFP, REUTERS

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