Top European diplomats will hold talks in Istanbul on Friday with counterparts from Turkiye, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt. A Turkish foreign ministry source said the meeting was initiated by Ankara.
Foreign ministers from Britain, France and Germany, the so-called E3, will meet the newly created R4 group. They are due to discuss the Palestinians, developments in Yemen and the Strait of Hormuz, and ways to end the Russia-Ukraine war. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan will host the first gathering of the two groups.
The source said the seven countries would come together for the first time in the R4+E3 format at Turkiye’s initiative and would explore cooperation that could be put into practice in the coming period.
Chairing the talks, Fidan was expected to stress that regional security requires countries of the region to take responsibility, and that Turkiye wants stronger cooperation based on regional ownership. He was also expected to say existing disputes should not feed one another, conflicts should not spread to new areas, and regional tensions should not turn into wider instability.
He was set to focus on the international community increasing pressure on Israel over settlement expansion and what the source called encouragement of settler terrorism. He was also due to underline Turkiye’s support for Saudi Arabia’s security in the face of Houthi attacks and the need for permanent freedom of navigation in the Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb straits.
Unrest in the Black Sea is another main subject. The minister was to point to Turkiye’s ongoing warnings and proposals meant to keep the Russia-Ukraine war from spreading there and to end civilian deaths. Armed attacks on commercial ships, often with drones, have multiplied in recent months as the war has spilled into the Black Sea, and Turkish ships have increasingly come under fire.
Last month Turkiye sent Russia and Ukraine a proposal to stop the strikes. The source said it appears to have gone unheeded, with attacks rising in recent weeks, notably near Romania and Bulgaria.
NATO said on Tuesday that it was deploying additional planes, drones and radar systems to the Black Sea and called for more situational awareness through extra sensors and more data-sharing.
The E3 was set up more than 20 years ago to coordinate diplomacy on Iran’s nuclear programme. The R4 was formed this year and brings together Egypt with the signatories of the Mecca Defence Agreement, a mutual defence pact established by Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in August.