Iran Press/ Asia: Talks between Russia and Ukraine's foreign ministers on Thursday made no apparent progress towards a ceasefire in the two-week-old conflict or on a humanitarian corridor from the southern Ukrainian port of Mariupol.
Ukraine's Dmytro Kuleba said after the talks that he had sought a 24-hour ceasefire across the whole combat zone as well as the opening of a Mariupol corridor, but that his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov did not commit to either.
Lavrov said he reminded Kuleba that Moscow had presented proposals to Kyiv, and that Russia wanted to see a friendly, demilitarised Ukraine.
The meeting, in the southern Turkish resort of Antalya was the highest-level contact between the two sides since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. It lasted just under an hour and a half, Reuters reported.
Both Kuleba and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who hosted the talks, said it was not an easy meeting.
At a news conference after the meeting, Lavrov said there had been no discussion of a ceasefire, and that the talks in Turkey could not be an alternative to the "real, main diplomatic track," referring to lower-level meetings in Belarus, an ally of Moscow.
"I am not surprised that Mr Kuleba said that it was not possible to agree about a ceasefire. Here, no one was intending to agree a ceasefire," he said.
Russia maintains it will halt the "special military operation" in Ukraine instantly if Ukraine meets its list of conditions.
Kyiv’s mayor says nearly two million people have fled the Ukrainian capital in the two weeks since Russia launched its operation on February 24.
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