Erdogan pledges to work for peace at Astana summit

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says his country aims to keep up its effort for peace between Russia and Ukraine despite the difficulties on the ground.

Erdogan made the comments on Thursday in Astana, Kazakhstan - where he is attending a regional summit - ahead of a planned meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"Our goal is to continue the momentum that has been achieved and bring an end to the bloodshed as soon as possible," Erdogan said in his address to the summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia.

He was referring to agreements that Turkey helped broker which allowed Ukrainians to resume grain exports and led to a prisoner swap between Ukraine and Russia.

"We are all closely experiencing the effects of the crisis in Ukraine on a regional and global scale," Erdogan said. "I always say that a just peace can be established with diplomacy, that there are no winners in war and no losers in equitable peace."

Turkey has retained close ties with both Moscow and Kyiv and has repeatedly offered to organize peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.