Erdoğan to talk to Trump and Putin about dictator's meeting with Zelenskyy in Istanbul

President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will hold conversations with his American counterpart Donald Trump and the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin regarding a possible meeting between the latter and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Istanbul. About this reported Directorate of Communications of the Republic of Turkey.

"In the coming period, possibly even within this week, we will strive to speak again by phone with Mr Putin and also with Mr Trump, to see whether we can bring Mr Putin and Mr Zelenskyy together in Istanbul," Erdoğan said.

UPDATED. Later, the Turkish department published a clarified quote from the country's president – the new was edited accordingly.

Earlier, on July 23, the third round of Ukraine-Russia talks in Istanbul, during which Kyiv offered Moscow to hold a meeting of leaders by the end of August with the participation of the Zelenskyy and Russian dictator, as well as the leaders of Turkey and the United States.

During a meeting with journalists on July 24, Zelenskyy said that Russia had begun talking to Ukraine about Putin's meeting with him and this is already a movement towards a certain format of the meeting.

• As with the previous two rounds of negotiations, the only real achievement of the third meeting in Istanbul was an agreement to continue the exchange of prisoners.