While the Biden administration has reportedly “blessed” Bennett’s mediation, it can only go so far unless the United States gets fully behind it. Erdogan has also sought to seize diplomatic opportunity in the Ukraine crisis. But Qatar’s role in Iran diplomacy even more vital with pause in Vienna nuclear talks. Da Al Monitor.
The Biden administration has so far not given much visible priority to negotiations with Russia to end the Ukraine war, leaving the diplomatic lane open for other players.
Most prominent among the interlocutors have been French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who are also mediators for the Minsk Agreements established in 2014 between Moscow and Kyiv that aim to end hostilities over the Donbas region of Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, however, has been cool to the European mediation efforts, because Macron and Scholz have joined the US-led sanctions regime against Russia, and therefore, in Putin’s view, possess limited credibility as impartial brokers, as Dimitri Simes explains in this week’s On the Middle East podcast.
Also stepping into the breach are Israeli President Naftali Bennett and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who have also seized the opportunity to take on an outsized diplomatic role in the crisis.
