In the negotiations about the blockade of the Ukrainian seaports, the Turkish head of state is using his line to Putin. Now Erdogan is offering a similar role in the contested nuclear power plant. The two autocrats soon made an appointment.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has offered to mediate with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the ongoing shelling of Ukraine's Zaporizhia nuclear power plant. As the presidential office in Ankara announced, Erdogan emphasized that Turkey could "play a mediating role" in the conflict, "as it already did with the grain agreement".
Brokered by Turkey and the UN, Russia and Ukraine signed separate agreements in July to resume grain supplies to Ukraine. Deliveries had previously been blocked for months due to the Russian war of aggression.
The Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, which has been occupied by Russia since March, and its surroundings have been repeatedly shelled in recent weeks. Ukraine and Russia blame each other for the attacks. At a meeting with the Ukrainian head of state Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Lviv, Ukraine last month, Erdogan warned of a nuclear disaster like that in Chernobyl in 1986.
On Thursday, reactor block number 5 at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant was shut down after shelling. Shortly thereafter, a team of experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) arrived at Europe's largest nuclear power plant. The 14-strong team is to check the security of the facility. IAEA boss Rafael Grossi and some other members of the team left on Thursday, but according to Russian information, six of the international inspectors remained in the facility. Two IAEA experts should therefore remain permanently in the nuclear power plant.
Moscow rated the IAEA mission in Zaporizhia as "very positive". On the other hand, the Ukrainian President Selenskyj clearly criticized the IAEA. He accused her of not having clearly called for the "demilitarization" of the nuclear site. According to Ukrainian sources, shortly before the arrival of the IAEA mission, the Russian army had withdrawn all of its military equipment from the power plant site.
According to the Turkish Presidential Office, Erdogan and Putin agreed to meet again in mid-September at a meeting in Sochi, Russia, on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Samarkand. At the meeting in Sochi, the two heads of state agreed to expand economic cooperation between their two countries.
