Ukraine, Lviv. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres – visit, meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky

The meeting of the leaders was announced on Tuesday by the spokesman The United Nations Stephane Dujarric. – At the invitation of President Zelensky, the secretary general will travel to Lviv on Thursday to take part in a tripartite meeting with the president Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the leader Ukraine he said. He added that on Friday Guterres will travel to Odessa and then to Turkey.

Erdogan traveled to Lviv through Poland. On Thursday morning his plane flew from Ankara to the airport in Jasionka near Rzeszów. He was welcomed by the Turkish ambassador to Poland, Cengiz Kamil Firat, and the second Podkarpackie Voivode, Radosław Wiatr.

As Reuters emphasized, the tripartite meeting will be Erdogan’s first conversation with Zelensky since the invasion Russia to Ukraine on February 24. The agency stressed that the Turkish leader had already met with the Russian president twice since then Vladimir Putin.

The topic of the talks will be, among others the tense situation around the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant, occupied by the Russian army. Guterres recently called for an end to military operations around the power plant.

The Turkish President’s office said that during the talks Erdogan would look into ways to increase grain exports and steps that could be taken to end the war between Ukraine and Russia through diplomatic means. It added that the leader would also discuss “all aspects” of bilateral relations between Ankara and Kiev.

Odessa is the main port covered by the agreement on the resumption of Ukrainian grain exports by sea. After the invasion of Ukraine at the end of February this year. Russia blocked Ukrainian ports. The current resumption of exports is overseen by the Joint Coordination Center (JCC) in Istanbul, which employs Turkish, Ukrainian, Russian and UN personnel. Guterres will visit this center on Saturday.