Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy yesterday secured Turkey’s backing for Ukraine’s NATO aspirations after winning a US pledge for cluster munitions.
Zelenskiy’s talks in Turkey were being watched closely by the Kremlin, which has tried to break its international isolation by cultivating strong relations with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
While reaffirming his call for both sides to enter peace talks, Erdogan delivered unequivocal support for Ukraine’s NATO aspiration.
Photo: AP
“There is no doubt that Ukraine deserves membership of NATO,” Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul.
Erdogan said that he would brief Russian President Vladimir Putin on the negotiations when Putin next month makes his first visit to Turkey since the invasion began.
The Turkish leader said that he and Putin would discuss possible prisoner swaps, as well as a possible extension of a deal brokered last year under which Ukraine shipped grain to the global market.
The deal expires on July 17 unless Russia agrees to its renewal.
However, While Zelenskiy is pressing for NATO membership “now,” the White House has urged restraint and said it would not happen at next week’s summit in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius.
Meanwhile, Washington’s decision to deliver the cluster weapons — which are banned across a large part of the world, but not in Russia or Ukraine — increases the stakes in the war, which entered its 500th day yesterday.
Zelenskiy has been traveling across Europe to secure bigger and better weapons for his army, which has launched a counteroffensive that is progressing less swiftly than Ukraine’s allies had hoped.
He called the latest US arms package “timely, broad and much-needed,” in a message on Twitter, adding that it “will provide new tools for the de-occupation of our land.”
US President Joe Biden said that that supplying Ukraine with weapons that can cover large areas with hundreds of small explosives was “a difficult decision.”
“And by the way, I discussed this with our allies,” Biden told CNN. “The Ukrainians are running out of ammunition.”
Humanitarian groups strongly condemned the decision to supply cluster munitions, which can go undetonated and potentially pose a danger for civilians for years.
As the war passed the 500-day mark, the UN condemned the civilian cost.
More than 9,000 civilians, including more than 500 children, have been killed since Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24 last year, the UN’s Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said on Friday.
That toll went up yesterday as authorities in the Donetsk region said six people were killed by Russian rocket fire in Lyman.
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