During an airborne press briefing held onboard Turkey’s official presidential aircraft as it traveled back from a state visit to South Korea, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addressed reporters’ queries regarding the potential for Turkiye to serve as the host venue for a landmark three-way diplomatic summit bringing together the leaders of Turkiye, Russia, and Ukraine. The high-level discussion on advancing peace in the prolonged Russia-Ukraine conflict comes on the heels of in-depth bilateral talks Erdogan held with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during Zelensky’s official visit to Turkiye the preceding Saturday. “During our meeting, we underscored to President Zelensky that prioritizing deliberate, diplomatic steps within ongoing negotiation frameworks is the foundational path to bringing a just and permanent end to the devastating war between our two Black Sea neighbor nations,” Erdogan told assembled journalists. “Turkiye has spared no effort to clear diplomatic pathways toward a sustainable peace agreement from the outset of this crisis, and we remain fully committed to sustaining these efforts for as long as it takes to deliver tangible progress.” Erdogan also confirmed that he is actively pursuing a separate face-to-face meeting with Russian head of state Vladimir Putin to align with Moscow on the terms for potential de-escalation and peace, following the productive discussions he held with Zelensky. The ongoing military conflict in Ukraine first commenced on February 24, 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale military operation, citing core demands that the Kyiv government halt alleged attacks on civilian populations in the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics – two territories that had declared independence from Ukraine – as well as implement formal “denazification” and “demilitarization” measures for the Ukrainian state.