New Delhi: Turkey will not join the West’s anti-Russian sanctions over the Ukrainian crisis, Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said on Sunday.
“We are conducting a well-balanced policy in respect of Russia. We are not imposing sanctions and will not join them. We must observe our own interests. If everyone are ruins the bridges, who will be speaking with Russia then? Our economic relations with Russia have such character that sanctions will do more harm to Turkey’s economy than to Russia’s. We have a clear position [on the matter of sanctions. The West has not accepted it,” he said in an interview with the media.
On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War that began in 2014. The invasion caused Europe’s fastest-growing refugee crisis since World War II, with more than 7.5 million Ukrainians fleeing the country and a third of the population displaced.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow had no plans to occupy Ukrainian territories, and the goal was to demilitarize and denazify the country. Vladimir Putin said that in response to a request by the heads of the Donbas republics he had made a decision to carry out a special military operation.
(Vinayak)