Turkey welcomes deal for creating humanitarian corridors in Ukraine
ANKARA
Turkey has welcomed a Russian-Ukrainian agreement for creating humanitarian corridors in the latter’s territories to pave the way for the evacuation of civilians from battlefields.
Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu expressed Turkey’s satisfaction with the agreement at a phone conversation with Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba late March 3, according to diplomatic sources.
Çavuşoğlu and Kuleba discussed the latest developments concerning the continued occupation of the Russian forces of Ukraine. The conversation came after the second round of talks between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations since the war began on Feb. 24.
Creating humanitarian corridors will not only help to evacuate people but also to deliver humanitarian aid inside Ukraine where lack of food and other needs have started to emerge, Çavuşoğlu also noted.
Ukraine and Russia have agreed to create humanitarian corridors in areas of Ukraine where fighting is worst, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said after negotiations between the two sides on March 3.
Podolyak said while there was no breakthrough on a cease-fire, negotiators reached an agreement on joint efforts to secure humanitarian corridors for evacuations and the supply of medicine and food to sites “with the most intensive fighting with a possibility of a [temporary] cease-fire in the areas where such evacuations will take place.”
The negotiators also agreed to meet again, he said.
Ukrainian negotiators said before the talks that they would demand a cease-fire and humanitarian corridors as deaths and destruction mounted eight days after Russia began the unprovoked invasion of its neighbor.
