President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spoke over the phone on Wednesday to discuss the ongoing war in Ukraine.
According to the statement made by the Presidency's Directorate of Communications, Guterres briefed Erdoğan about his recent contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
The development comes two days after Guterres met Erdoğan in Ankara, and both reaffirmed their common objective to end the war that began on Feb. 24.
After the meeting, the U.N. chief headed to the Russian capital, which will be followed by talks in Kyiv on Thursday.
Putin agreed "in principle" to U.N. and International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) involvement in the evacuation of civilians from a besieged steel plant in Ukraine's southern city of Mariupol, the United Nations said on Tuesday.
During the meeting in Moscow, Putin and Guterres discussed the situation at the huge Azovstal steel plant, where the last Ukrainian defenders of Mariupol are hunkered down after months of Russian siege and bombardment.
"Follow-on discussions will be had with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Russian Defence Ministry," U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement after the meeting.
Earlier on Tuesday, Putin told Erdoğan that there were no military operations underway in Mariupol and that Kyiv should "take responsibility" for the people holed up in the Azovstal steel plant.
Ukraine on Monday appealed for the United Nations and the ICRC to be involved in the evacuation of civilians from Azovstal. Guterres is expected to meet with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Thursday.
During a news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Guterres said he has proposed a "Humanitarian Contact Group" of Russia, Ukraine and U.N. officials "to look for opportunities for the opening of safe corridors, with local cessations of hostilities, and to guarantee that they are actually effective."
Moscow describes its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine as a "special military operation" and denies targeting civilians. It blames Ukraine for the repeated failure of humanitarian corridors.
Russia sent troops into Ukraine in what it called a "special military operation" to "denazify" and "demilitarize" its neighbor.
The West has imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia to force it to end the war that has killed thousands and driven millions of Ukrainians from their homes, including over 5 million to neighboring countries.
On April 21, Russia declared victory in Mariupol although remaining Ukrainian forces held out in a vast underground complex below Azovstal.
Russia said on Monday it would open a humanitarian corridor for civilians to leave the steel plant, but Ukraine said there was no such agreement and that Russia was still attacking it.
Guterres and Erdoğan reaffirmed their "common objective" of ending the war in Ukraine "as soon as possible," the U.N. said on Monday.
The leaders "stressed the urgent need for effective access through humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians and deliver much-needed assistance to impacted communities," the U.N. said in a statement after Guterres met Erdoğan in Ankara.
Guterres expressed his support for Turkey's "ongoing diplomatic efforts in relation to the war in Ukraine," noting that he and Erdoğan "agreed to stay in contact to follow up on ongoing initiatives."
Talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul on March 29 were seen as a breakthrough in the push to halt hostilities that began on Feb. 24.
After the meeting, a Ukrainian negotiator said Kyiv wants Turkey among the countries that will be guarantors in any deal with Moscow.
Turkey also brought together the Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers in its southern resort city of Antalya in March, the first meeting of senior government officials from the two sides since the start of the war.
Turkish officials have also been engaging with their counterparts on the issue of humanitarian corridors in Ukraine.
