A thousand persons may be exchanged with Ankara’s mediation, Turkish ombudsman has told journalists
FILE PHOTO. Russian-Ukrainian talks in Türkiye on January 12, 2022 © Russian human rights ombudsman / @ombudsmanrf / Telegram
Lists compiled by Russian and Ukrainian officials for a potential prisoner swap include about a thousand individuals, according to Türkiye, which hosted talks between the two nations last week.
Details of the endeavor were shared with the public by Seref Malkoc, Türkiye’s chief ombudsman for human rights, during a press conference on Monday. Among other matters, he discussed last week’s meeting between his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts.
“The Ukrainian ombudsman gave a list of 800 people to the Russian side at the meeting where I was present. The Russian ombudsman gave a list of 200 people to the Ukrainian ombudsman,” he said, as quoted by Turkish media.
Russian human-rights commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova held a bilateral discussion last week with Ukraine’s Dmitry Lubinets in Ankara. They were later joined by Malkoc and Mustafa Sentop, the speaker of the Turkish parliament. Possible prisoner exchanges were debated during the meeting, but previous statements by participating officials didn’t disclose the numbers that could be involved.
READ MORE: Ukrainian and Russian officials meet in Ankara
The Turkish intermediary said the two parties made some changes to their relevant lists during the event and that the proposed exchange was then subject to approval by the leadership of each nation. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will be in contact with President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Vladimir Zelensky of Ukraine about the matter, he added.
Russia and Ukraine conducted a number of prisoner swaps over the months of the armed conflict, some with Türkiye’s mediation. Unlike many allies of the US, Ankara declined to take an antagonistic stance towards Russia and has served as a middle man between Moscow and Kiev. Among other things, Türkiye helped create a UN-backed mechanism for exporting Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea.
