by Miceál O’Hurley
ANKARA — President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced Tuesday that Türkiye is ready to host future negotiations between Russia, Ukraine, and the United States to end Russia’s ongoing war on Ukraine. Standing beside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a scheduled visit to Ankara, Erdoğan reaffirmed Türkiye’s commitment to Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, emphasizing the need for a lasting and just peace.
Erdoğan and his offer of mediation should be taken seriously.
I was present in 2022 when in the very first days of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine Erdoğan brought together the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of both the Russian Federation and Ukraine at the annual Antalya Diplomacy Forum. While an agreement was not reached in that single meeting it did lay the groundwork for a framework that both sides genuinely considered prior to the horrific atrocities committed by Russian forces in Bucha and Irpin having been exposed.
Ankara has been a trusted intermediary in this matter since its earliest days. Erdoğan’s personal leadership provided for that framework floated in Antalya that might still bear fruit today. Indeed, Türkiye’s leadership brokered the highly-sensitive 2022 Black Sea Grain Initiative that kept Ukraine’s agribusiness sector functioning and critical grain shipments flowing to places like Africa. Without exaggeration, Türkiye helped avert the crisis widening to one of peripheral world hunger that would have cost hundreds of thousands if not millions of lives in nations which rely on Ukraine’s high-quality yet cheap grain supply.
Türkiye has increasingly acted as a bulwark for stability in a rather troubled region for the past decade. While much of the world has been focused on Russia’s war on Ukraine, Türkiye has acted as the catalyst for peace in places like Ethiopia, Somalia and now Sudan’s long-running civil war. With more than 11-million people having been displaced, a settlement has heretofore eluded attempts to quell the raging conflict. The United Nations and multiple in-depth media investigations have concluded that Abu Dhabi has been supporting Mohamed Hamdan “Hemeti” Dagalo’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) at war with Sudan’s government. Last month, Sudan’s military chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burham embraced Türkiye’s offer of mediation between Sudan and the United Arab Emirates.
Türkiye has emerged as “Africa’s Mediator” given the strength of their diplomatic influence on the continent, throughout the Middle East and the sometimes terse but productively outsized long-term relationship with the United States. The December 2024 success arising from Erdoğan’s personal leadership in mediating a settlement between Ethiopia and Somalia demonstrated Türkiye’s influence, skill and reliability in high-stakes diplomacy. The image of Erdoğan holding hands with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud surprised many as the long-running and bloody conflict seemed beyond reconciliation. While Ethiopia and Somalia both pledged to recognise and honour each country’s sovereignty, Erdoğan exercised prescient wisdom and discipline by calling the cardinal achievement “the first step towards a new beginning”.
Given Türkiye’s unique diplomatic prowess in parsing the often-difficult landscape of global politics and Erdoğan’s personal rapport with the key players from Kyiv to Moscow and Washington, D.C. to Paris, the opportunity for a proven mediator to assist parties and stakeholders in resolving the largest land war in Europe since World War II is pregnant with possibilities. The path to a ceasefire and durable settlement is, no doubt, a long and arduous one, but Erdoğan’s Türkiye has the unique rapport, demonstrated experience and lasting engagement to assist Ukraine and Russia in reaching a settlement that goes beyond halting the bloodbath that this nearly-static war has become but in achieving a lasting peace based on the rule of law compatible with interest-based conflict resolution.
During the press conference with Zelenskyy, Erdoğan indicated his welcome for US President Donald Trump’s recent diplomatic push to end the war as aligning with Türkiye’s long-standing efforts for a just peace. Erdoğan also took the opportunity to highlight the strength of Türkiye’s bilateral relationship with Ukraine citing a desire to advance post-war reconstruction. Türkiye has a long-term strategic partnership marked by support for Ukraine’s Crimean Tatar community. Crimean Tatars are the indigenous people of Crimea whose cultural, ethnic, religious and historic relationship with Türkiye has endured for centuries.
