OREANDA-NEWS. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will hold telephone talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on 3 December during which he plans to discuss the situation in Ukraine. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said this in Riga, where a meeting of NATO foreign ministers is taking place, TASS reported.

"We are in contact with the two sides [Russia and Ukraine] and we are in favour of de-escalation. I recently held talks with foreign ministers [Russia's Sergei] Lavrov and [Ukraine's Dmitriy] Kuleba. Our president is going to hold talks with President Putin on Friday,"- Çavuşoğlu said.

He added that sanctions against Russia would not "solve the problem" or help Ukraine. "As Turkey, we believe in the right balance between containment and dialogue. So only by imposing sanctions will not help Ukraine or any other country,"- the minister said.

Earlier, on November 29, Erdogan said Turkey was ready to mediate the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. He pointed out that the Turkish side intends to continue discussions with both sides and is "in favour of establishing peace in the region".

Russian presidential press secretary Dmitriy Peskov responded to Erdogan's proposal by saying that Russia was not a party to the conflict over Donbas, so holding a trilateral summit made no sense. According to Peskov, the parties to the conflict are primarily Kiev and representatives of the self-proclaimed republics.