Türkiye’s president meets NATO chief as Kiev asks Ankara to host leaders-level meeting with Russia.
Published on 22 April 2026
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte that the Turks are trying to revive talks between Russia and Ukraine and bring together the leaders of the warring sides.
Ankara has maintained good relations with both sides since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
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Türkiye’s presidential office said Wednesday that Erdogan and Rutte met in the Turkish capital, Ankara.
“Erdogan said that we are engaged as Turks to end the Ukraine-Russia war peacefully, and we are working to revive the dialogue and start dialogue at the leaders’ level,” the president said in a readout of the meeting.
The Turkish president also told Rutte that maintaining transatlantic relations was “imperative”, but Ankara expects the European NATO ally to take more responsibility for transatlantic security, the president said.
Separately, Erdogan spoke by phone with German Chancellor Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Wednesday and informed him of Ankara’s efforts to achieve lasting peace in Ukraine through negotiations, the presidential office said.
Erdogan told the German leader that the US-Iran war was “beginning to weaken Europe” and that the damage from the conflict would increase if world powers failed to intervene with a “peace-oriented approach”.
“Erdogan said Turkiye was working to end the Ukraine-Russia war through dialogue and reach a lasting peace, just as he is trying with regard to Iran,” the presidency said in a statement after the phone call.
Ukraine’s request
Earlier on Wednesday, Kiev had said that it had asked NATO member Turkey to host a leaders-level meeting with Russia.
“We asked the Turks about it, we asked some other capitals,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sibiha told reporters on Tuesday.
He said Ukraine would be willing to consider any location other than Belarus or Russia for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has long been trying to speed up a resolution of the more than four-year war.
Meanwhile, Russian news agencies quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying that Putin would be ready to meet his counterpart only for the purpose of finalizing agreements on the conflict.
“The main thing is the goal of this meeting. Why should they meet? Putin has said he is ready for a meeting in Moscow at any time,” Peskov was quoted by Russian state television as saying by the Tass news agency.
“The main thing is that there should be a reason for meeting, and the main thing is that the meeting should be meaningful. And it can only be for the purpose of finalizing agreements.”
