Turkiye said Thursday it was ready to participate in a proposed Black Sea security mechanism that could form part of any eventual peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine, even as the Kremlin simultaneously told reporters that no immediate prospect existed for resuming the negotiations.
Ankara has long sought to broker talks between both warring sides, and its offer to mediate the landmark Black Sea initiative is being viewed as a double-edged diplomatic development that underscores both the depth of Turkiye’s commitment to ending the war and the scale of the obstacles that still stand in the way.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Turkiye was ready to engage in possible mechanisms to ensure security in the Black Sea after the conclusion of a peace agreement on Ukraine.
Speaking alongside his Ukrainian counterpart Andriy Sybiga in Kyiv, where he travelled on Thursday to press mediation efforts, Fidan said Turkiye did not want to see the war spread further into the Black Sea.
“There is simply no explanation for a war in Europe to continue for five years in the 21st century. We need peace more than ever,” he said.
Fidan added that Turkiye hoped the ceasefire in Ukraine would be achieved and peace talks resumed regardless of the persisting difficulties, saying that “light is already visible in this deep darkness.”
He reaffirmed Turkish commitment to host direct Russian-Ukrainian talks, adding that diplomacy was the only way to achieve a sustainable settlement.
The Kremlin’s response arrived hours later and was considerably less optimistic.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: “At present, we see no immediate prospects for resuming the negotiating process. However, the Russian side undoubtedly remains open to this path.”
The Balancing Act Turkiye Has Mastered Since 2022
Fidan’s visit to Kyiv comes with the authority of a track record that few other countries can match. Since the beginning of the Ukrainian conflict, Turkiye has maintained contacts with both Russia and Ukraine, positioning itself as a mediator. The first Russian-Ukrainian talks took place in Istanbul in 2022. Ankara also brokered the Black Sea grain initiative and several prisoner exchanges.
The Black Sea Grain Initiative, formally brokered in July 2022 under the auspices of the United Nations and with Turkiye as the central guarantor, was one of the most consequential single diplomatic achievements of the war’s early phase.
The deal created safe corridors for Ukrainian grain ships through waters that Russian naval forces had effectively mined and blockaded since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022, allowing tens of millions of tonnes of Ukrainian wheat, corn and sunflower oil to reach global markets at a moment when food security analysts were warning of catastrophic shortages across Africa and the Middle East.
Russia ultimately walked away from the agreement in July 2023, citing disputes over its own agricultural exports, but the initiative’s existence demonstrated that Ankara could bring both sides to the same table and hold them there long enough to produce an agreement with real-world consequences.
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Ankara invoked the Montreux Convention to close the straits to the warships of “belligerent powers.”
Despite an exception that allows Black Sea-based warships to return to their home ports after the closure, Turkiye went further, closing the Turkish straits to military vessels of all countries, Russian, Ukrainian or NATO. This left Russia unable to reinforce its Black Sea Fleet, which became vulnerable to Ukrainian attacks.
But it also meant NATO warships from non-coastal states could not enter the Black Sea to help Ukraine. That decision, maintained consistently since February 2022, has defined both the strategic constraints on the war’s maritime dimension and the unique leverage Turkiye holds as the keeper of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits.
What the Black Sea Security Mechanism Would Entail
The proposal for a Black Sea security mechanism, the specific framework Fidan said Turkiye was ready to join, has been discussed in various forms by European and NATO planners as a potential component of any eventual peace architecture, though its precise contours remain undefined.
The core idea involves establishing a set of agreed protocols governing freedom of navigation, naval restrictions and monitoring arrangements in the Black Sea once a ceasefire or peace agreement takes hold, potentially modelled on elements of the original grain corridor agreement but with a broader scope covering military as well as commercial traffic.
Fidan did not specify what countries made the proposal or what specific security measures could be implemented, but said that Turkiye is coordinating with partners on the initiative.
He also repeated Ankara’s call for a return to the Istanbul format. “We are in contact with the United States on the resumption of talks on Ukraine. The Istanbul format has proven its efficiency, and its continuation would be advisable,” Fidan said, adding that Ankara would continue to work with all parties.
Fidan, who met President Vladimir Putin in Russia last month, said Turkiye was ready to host future talks. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Sybiga said President Volodymyr Zelensky would be ready to meet Putin in Turkiye. The Kremlin chief has repeatedly rejected meeting Zelensky until a deal is agreed to end the war.
Kremlin Dismisses Kyiv’s Cabinet Shakeup as Irrelevant to Peace Prospects
The Kremlin’s dual message on Thursday, open in principle to negotiations but seeing no near-term prospect for them, was accompanied by a notably dismissive assessment of the major government reshuffle Zelensky announced in Kyiv on the same day, in which parliament approved a new prime minister and a new defence minister.
Peskov told reporters that “all these changes do not have any fundamental significance for us. It is important for us to ensure our own interests in resolving the situation.”
He added that it was important for Russia that there be a person in Kyiv who would make a responsible decision that would allow for reaching a peaceful settlement, and that for Russia it did not matter who the Ukrainian defence minister was.
The Kremlin’s pointed indifference to the identity of Ukraine’s new defence minister carries a particular edge given the circumstances.
The official being replaced, Mykhailo Fedorov, was widely credited in Western defence circles with driving the technological innovations, mass drone production, AI-assisted targeting, and unmanned surface vessel developments, that have inflicted serious damage on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and shadow fleet supply chain.
Whether Moscow’s public dismissiveness reflects genuine strategic assessment or deliberate information messaging aimed at undermining the morale impact of Fedorov’s tenure is a question Kyiv’s analysts are actively debating.
Diplomatic Push for High-Level Talks in Turkiye
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has formally suggested that Turkiye could serve as the venue for a potential summit between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin to address the ongoing conflict.
At the joint press conference in Kyiv with his Turkish counterpart Fidan, Sybiha emphasised that direct, high-level engagement is essential to breaking the current stalemate.
“I believe only a summit of leaders can inject new momentum into the peace process,” Sybiha stated, affirming that Kyiv remains prepared to agree to a ceasefire if a viable path to a comprehensive resolution can be established through diplomatic channels.
While the prospect of a Turkiye-hosted summit has been met with interest, the Kremlin has dampened expectations for an immediate breakthrough.
In a statement released shortly after the Ukrainian minister’s remarks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov expressed gratitude for Turkiye’s consistent mediation efforts but noted that Russia sees “no immediate prospects” for the resumption of formal negotiations.
Peskov indicated that while Moscow remains theoretically open to dialogue, there are currently no signs of a shift in the conflict’s trajectory, leaving the possibility of a Zelenskyy-Putin meeting in Istanbul uncertain for the near future.
A Diplomatic Triangle of Profound Complexity
Thursday’s intersecting developments- Fidan’s mediation offer, Peskov’s door-closing statement and Zelensky’s cabinet reshuffle- illustrate the triangular complexity at the heart of any path to a negotiated end to the Ukraine war.
Turkiye occupies a position of extraordinary structural leverage: it controls the straits through which any post-war Black Sea security architecture must flow, has established relationships of trust with both Moscow and Kyiv that no other state can claim simultaneously, and has now formally offered to join the very security mechanism that would define the Black Sea’s post-war order.
A pragmatic reset in Turkiye-EU relations could enhance each side’s ability to contain Russia, a shared goal, and include Turkiye in the post-Ukraine war European security architecture.
But the precondition for any of that architecture to take shape, a ceasefire that both Russia and Ukraine are willing to honour, remains as elusive on Thursday as it has been for the past four and a half years.
The Turkish minister noted that Ankara will continue to work with all parties, even as the Kremlin’s message made clear that the path between Fidan’s visible light at the end of the tunnel and an actual agreement remains very long indeed.
