UN chief Guterres to travel to Turkey to meet Erdoğan ahead of Moscow and Kyiv trips

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres will travel to Turkey for a meeting with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, before heading on to Kyiv and Moscow to discuss the war in Ukraine.

Guterres will be received by Erdoğan on Monday, the government in Ankara announced.

NATO member Turkey has sought to act as a mediator in the Ukraine conflict and maintains close ties to Ukraine and Russia. Delegations from both countries met in Istanbul in March.

Guterres is scheduled to travel to Moscow on Tuesday where he will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin. He will then head to Kyiv on Thursday, for a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The UN secretary-general also conducted a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Saturday, to discuss the war in Ukraine.

Similar to Turkey, Israel also maintains a good relationship with both Moscow and Kiev.

Turkey has not joined Western countries in imposing sanctions on Russia so far, but has been restricting access to Turkish straits for Russian warships since the beginning of March.

Under the 1936 Montreux Convention, Turkey has control over the Bosporus and Daradanelles Strait connecting the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. While trade ships may pass the strait freely in peacetime, battleships face certain restrictions.

Russia often uses the Turkish straits to manoeuvre ships between the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea.

On Saturday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu announced that Turkey would close its airspace to military and civilian planes carrying soldiers from Russia to Syria following consultations with Moscow.