The talks between Russian and Ukrainian officials set to be held in Istanbul are the culmination of Turkey's relentless efforts to broker peace between the two sides, the Turkish parliament speaker said on Monday.
"This is the right step. It is what needs to happen," Mustafa Şentop said in in Slovenia's capital Ljubljana, where he arrived on Sunday night to attend the Conference of Speakers of European Union Parliaments.
He discussed the Ukraine crisis and Ankara's push for peace between Moscow and Kyiv in meetings with top Slovenian officials, including President Borut Pahor, Prime Minister Janez Jansa and Igor Zorcic, speaker of Slovenia's National Assembly.
"Turkey is the only country that has been in talks with both Ukraine and Russia since the beginning and has been striving for a cease-fire," Şentop asserted.
He said everyone is hoping for a halt in hostilities, including "all politicians and statesmen in the region and the world."
"People are hoping that there will be a cease-fire. But to achieve that it is imperative to persuade the two sides to meet and to bring them together," he said, adding that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has made "great efforts" to make the upcoming Istanbul meeting a reality.
Selman Özboyacı, a member of the Turkey-European Union Joint Parliamentary Committee, also attended the meetings.
