Turkey offers boat evacuation of people from Mariupol.
Turkey has offered to evacuate people trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol by boat, the country’s defense minister announced on Saturday.
“We can provide ship support for evacuations from Mariupol, especially for civilians, wounded people and Turkish citizens and citizens from other nations,” Minister Hulusi Akar told reporters.
The port city, which stretches along the Azov Sea on Ukraine’s southern coastline, has suffered extensive damage from Russian attacks and its plans to operate safe evacuation routes have been thwarted until Saturday.
The Turkish Defense Ministry forwarded its “request to support the evacuations” to the Russian military attaché in Ankara and the Turkish military attaché in Moscow, who passed the message to the Russian authorities. The Ukrainian military attaché in Ankara also conveyed the message to the Ukrainian authorities.
Turkey hosted negotiating teams from Russia and Ukraine for talks in Istanbul earlier this week.
