By Faruk Zorlu and Gozde Bayar
ANKARA (AA) – In an official state visit, Turkey on Monday again underlined that it does not recognize Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea.
Turkey's support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity will continue, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a joint news conference alongside his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky.
Turkey is “closely” monitoring the situation of Crimea’s Tatar Turks and will continue supporting them with Ukrainian authorities, he added.
Addressing reporters, Zelensky said his country is grateful to get assistance from Turkish partners thanks to military and financial cooperation between the two countries.
On exchanges of prisoners between Russia and Ukraine, Ukraine sought Turkey’s support on the release of Ukrainian citizens including Crimean Tatars in Russian prisons, Zelensky added.
The Tatars have faced persecution since Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.
Zelensky also extended condolences to Turkey over the death of Turkish military personnel in Idlib, Syria Monday due to an Assad regime attack.
-Prisoner exchanges
On Sunday, a prisoner swap between Ukraine’s government and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine was completed.
On Dec. 9, the leaders of the Normandy Four countries — Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine — met in Paris, and the parties to the conflict agreed to a full exchange of prisoners of war before the end of December.
Russia and Ukraine have been at loggerheads since 2014, when Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula after a referendum.
Turkey as well as the UN General Assembly view the annexation as illegal.
Ukraine also blames the Kremlin for separatist violence in Donbass, a region in eastern Ukraine that borders Russia.
On Monday, shelling by the Assad regime killed six Turkish military personnel and injured at least seven in Idlib, northwestern Syria, an area supposed to be under a cease-fire.
Turkey and Russia agreed in September 2018 to turn Idlib into a de-escalation zone where acts of aggression are expressly prohibited.
The Syrian regime and its allies, however, have consistently broken the terms of the cease-fire – including a fresh cease-fire on Jan. 12 – launching frequent attacks inside the zone, killing at least 1,300 civilians since the agreement, and triggering a total of some 1 million towards Turkey’s border.
