Turkey rejects the Russian annexation of Ukrainian territories as a “violation of international law”

The Turkish Foreign Ministry has categorically rejected the annexation by Russia of the territories of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia, in eastern Ukraine, as a “flagrant violation of international law”, in a statement that strains relations between Moscow and Ankara, the latter erected as one of the main mediators to end the conflict in Ukraine. The Ministry, in a note released this Saturday, recalls that Turkey, as happened in 2014, when it refused to recognize ” the annexation of Crimea by Russia in an illegitimate referendum”, is now expressing itself in the same terms and granting its “strong support for the territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty of Ukraine”. “In accordance with this position, we reject the Russia’s decision to annex these regions as a flagrant violation of established principles of international law,” the note adds. “We reiterate our support for the end of this war, whose seriousness sig on the rise, on the basis of a just peace to be achieved through negotiations,” according to the statement.