The leaders spoke by telephone about the situation in Ukraine and its southerly Crimea region, which lie across the Black Sea from Turkey. Crimea has a large Turkic speaking minority and is now under Moscow‘s control.

Erdoğan told Putin „that it is foremost the responsibility of Ukrainians to resolve the country‘s crisis“ and emphasised that „instability in (Ukraine) would negatively affect the entire region,“ a statement from Erdoğan‘s office said.