Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said that the leaders of Ukraine and Russia are “not yet ready” for a face-to-face meeting, Reuters reports.

Previous efforts to bring the two sides together have failed to materialise, with lower-level negotiations showing little progress toward ending the war.

Türkiye supports “raising the level of negotiations gradually”, with the ultimate goal being a direct meeting between the two leaders. Erdoğan believes this to be the only way to achieve concrete results for peace. 

The Turkish president made the comments following his trip to China, where he met with Russian president Vladimir Putin and said he called Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy by phone. 

He also said that the diplomatic path to peace remains open, demonstrated by talks between Ukrainian and Russian officials in Istanbul in recent months. 

Türkiye has taken an active role in mediation since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, keeping channels with both countries open and hosting diplomatic meetings between officials from the two warring countries.