Ukraine: UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in Ankara tomorrow before heading to Moscow and Kyiv

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will be in Turkey on Monday, a country that has played a key role in mediating the war in Ukraine, before traveling to Moscow and Kyiv next week, his office said on Saturday.

“The secretary-general will travel to Ankara, Turkey, where he will be received by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on April 25,” the UN said in a statement issued last night.

Mr Guterres will then travel to Moscow (Tuesday) and Kyiv (Thursday) to try to negotiate an end to the Russian-led invasion that has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people and uprooted more than ten million Ukrainians ( refugees and internally displaced persons) from 24 February.

Fierce fighting is raging in the eastern part of the country, while dozens of civilians and soldiers remain trapped in a steel plant in the southern port city of Mariupol, which has almost been wiped off the map.

On Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky strongly criticized Guterres’ decision to go first to Moscow and then to Kyiv, saying he saw “no justice and no logic in this series.”

“The war is taking place in Ukraine, there are no corpses on the streets of Moscow. It would make sense for him to come to Ukraine first, to see the world down here, the consequences of the occupation,” Zelensky said in an indignant tone.

Turkey is trying to negotiate to end the armed conflict and has hosted meetings of Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in Istanbul, as well as a meeting of the foreign ministers of the two warring countries in Antalya.

Ankara is currently trying to arrange a meeting between Mr. Zelensky and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, although Turkish officials acknowledge that the possibility of such a meeting seems slim at the moment.

Source: ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ

Source: Capital

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