Azerbaijan’s Parliament Speaker Sahiba Gafarova met her Armenian counterpart Alen Simonyan in Istanbul on Friday to discuss prospects for the normalisation of relations between the two countries.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in Istanbul on Saturday to hold security talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Editor’s note: Moses Becker is a special political commentator for News.Az. He holds a PhD in political science and specializes in interethnic and interreligious relations. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the position of News.Az.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called for the revival of the Istanbul negotiation process on Wednesday, during a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Ankara.

Pakistan and Afghanistan will resume peace talks in Istanbul on Thursday, both nations announced, following a previous round that ended without a lasting truce.

Pakistan and Afghanistan reopened their two main borders to people on Saturday after weeks of closure, following discussions in the Turkish metropolis of Istanbul.

Afghanistan and Pakistan have agreed to restart peace talks in Istanbul, according to three sources familiar with the matter. This comes just a day after Islamabad announced that previous discussions had ended in failure.

Delegations from Iran and the European trio of the UK, France, and Germany gathered on Friday in Istanbul for a second round of nuclear talks, marking the latest attempt to revive diplomatic engagement over Tehran’s disputed nuclear program.

The delegations of Russia and Ukraine have concluded the third round of talks in Istanbul.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has appointed a 14-member delegation to lead peace negotiations with Russia in Istanbul on July 23, while signaling upcoming rounds of prisoner-of-war (POW) exchanges.