“A bad peace is better than a good war,” so says a Russian proverb. “If the Turks speak of peace, prepare for war,” so says a Greek proverb. So, what kind of peace is Turkey offering in the Russian-Ukrainian case?

The Istanbul negotiating base and Turkey’s contentless peace initiatives

Ankara, having received many acceptable concessions from Russia on a number of regional issues (including Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh), since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian military-political crisis in February 2022, has outwardly demonstrated active diplomacy with a reliance on mediation and the achievement of a “fragile peace”. Naturally, with such initiatives Turkey tried not only to show its ability to remain equidistant from the parties to the conflict, but also to add credibility to the international arena by demonstrating itself as a key player. By the way, in 2022, President Erdoğan managed to initiate the negotiation process between Moscow and Kyiv in Istanbul, achieve interim results in terms of periodic exchange of prisoners and conclude the famous “grain deal” with economic benefits for himself.

The Istanbul Peace Agenda, as it came to be known after its failure, contained a number of important principles for a ceasefire and a reasonably peaceful settlement, which were worked out by the parties to the conflict in negotiations between the delegations of D. Arakhamia and V. Medinsky on 29 March 2002 (i.e. just over a month after the start of the military operation). In particular, they discussed Ukraine’s neutral status – its refusal to join NATO, to station foreign contingents on its territory and to develop nuclear weapons. Ukraine received international guarantees for its own security, except for the territories of the Crimean Peninsula, the DNR and the LNR. The permanent members of the UN Security Council (the US, Britain, France and China), as well as Germany, Italy, Poland, Canada, Israel and Turkey, were to guarantee the agreements reached. Ukraine’s European integration with accession to the EU was allowed. Ukraine was obliged to ban by law the propaganda of the concepts of “fascism”, “Nazism” and “aggressive nationalism”.

It cannot be said that such a ceasefire suited both sides in all respects. However, the Russian authorities expressed the political will to take such a step in the name of peace. However, the........

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