The first since the beginning of the Great War: what did the head of the Turkish diplomacy agree on in Kyiv?

Hakan Fidan's visit was not only his first visit to Ukraine as Minister of Foreign Affairs but also the first visit to Kyiv by a Turkish high-ranking official during the full-scale invasion. And there are reasons for this.

The figure of Türkiye's new foreign minister, and until recently the head of Turkish intelligence, Hakan Fidan, has always remained in the shadows of international politics, although he himself has repeatedly played a key role in reaching difficult (and non-public) agreements.

Turkish experts note that even after being appointed to a senior position in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he often prefers to remain "behind the scenes". Unlike his predecessor Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, Fidan gives fewer interviews, rarely appears in front of the cameras, and remains tight-lipped in his comments to the media.

Instead of active communication with the press, the new minister took up the solution of the most urgent and complex issues of Turkish foreign and security policy. In less than three months in office, he had to deal with a difficult legacy in Türkiye's relations with the West, another crisis in relations with Greece, the escalation in Cyprus, the problem of Syrian refugees (which has already reached the shores of Britain), the need to strengthen the fight against terrorism and continue efforts to provide the Global South with Ukrainian and Russian crops.

As the English say, too much on one plate. Therefore, priorities are important.

Hakan Fidan made his first official visit to Iraq after taking office, where he tried to convince the Iraqi government to recognize the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) as a terrorist organization. In particular, this should remove the issue of cross-border (primarily air) operations of the Turkish Armed Forces on the territory of the country, which in Baghdad are considered as an illegal border violation, and in Ankara they explain the need to neutralize the sources of the terrorist threat for their own security.

From Baghdad, Khakan Fidan arrived in Kyiv, where he was received by the President and Prime Minister of Ukraine, and also had meetings with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, leaders of the Crimean Tatar people, and the leadership of NABU.

This visit was the first visit of a high-ranking Turkish official to Kyiv since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.

Last August, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited Lviv to participate in tripartite "grain" talks with Volodymyr Zelenskyi and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Already this year, the leaders of Ukraine and Türkiye met in Istanbul, from where the Ukrainian president returned with the defenders of Azovstal, and also brought Ankara's assurance of unwavering support for the territorial integrity of Ukraine, including Crimea, and our future membership in NATO. Last year, the adviser to the President of Türkiye (and now the head of Turkish intelligence) Ibrahim Kalin came to Kyiv. But the visit was rather unofficial and aimed at working consultations in the Office of the President of Ukraine.

The current visit of the ministerial level has an important symbolic meaning because it finally removes the "taboo" on the visit of Turkish officials to the Ukrainian capital.

At the joint press conference, many words were spoken about the comprehensive and multidimensional nature of the strategic partnership, but the priorities of the visit of the Turkish minister are obvious - the reincarnation of the grain initiative and the participation of Turkish business in the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine.

It is critical for Ankara to maintain its status as a diplomatic and trade intermediary in the trade of Ukrainian and Russian grain with the rest of the world.

The format, proposed by Türkiye a year ago and largely maintained by the political will and diplomatic skill of the Turkish president, has given way. And this time, it doesn't look like Russia is going to return to the negotiating table, despite Erdoğan's numerous public appeals to Putin personally.

Turkish diplomacy loves silence and rarely makes loud statements without prior agreement with the other side. The fact that official Ankara has repeatedly announced the meetings of the two presidents - first in Türkiye, and then on the sidelines of the G20 summit and the UN General Assembly in New York - without confirmation from the Kremlin should be considered more as an element of public pressure on Putin than real agreements.

Actually, the recent change of previous plans also testifies to this: now the Turkish president is preparing to travel to Russia. If this meeting eventually takes place, it will be the fifth since the beginning of the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. In July-September 2022, Erdoğan and Putin held talks in Tehran, Sochi, Samarkand, and Astana.

Today, the owner of the bunker clearly has less desire to meet with the Turkish leader.

At the same time, in the current situation, Ankara has neither the desire nor the financial and military capabilities to talk to the Kremlin in the language of ultimatums. Therefore, there will be no "last Turkish warning" to Putin, which many in Ukraine hope for.

Türkiye is not ready to be involved in ensuring freedom of navigation in the Black Sea by military means and it also is not ready to lose the status of an intermediary country, which may be deprived of it by the formats of the grain initiative proposed by Ukraine without the participation of Russia.

In Ankara, without particular enthusiasm, they look at alternative ways of supplying Ukrainian grain to world markets, which Kyiv is currently actively working on. At the same time, the parallel negotiations that Russia has started with Qatar and Türkiye in order to exclude Ukraine from the logistics chains do not inspire either trust or support. In addition to the blow to the partnership with Ukraine itself, such a move would significantly harm Türkiye's relations with the US and the EU. This is what Erdoğan needs the least at the moment since he is trying to economically turn the country to the West while remaining geopolitically in the East.

So, Hakan Fidan's mission is really not easy. The maximum task is to restore the "grain agreement" by agreeing on minor concessions from all sides. The minimum task is to propose a new format through the mediation of Türkiye, which would include both Ukraine and Russia - possibly as part of broader "package" agreements in other directions.

Recently, the Turkish minister already met with the Russian ambassador in Ankara Oleksiy Yerkhov; Fidan's visit to Moscow and talks with Lavrov are planned for the next few days. His current visit to Kyiv is a good opportunity for Ukrainian top officials to "brief" Turkish partners and present their vision of Russian aggression - not only on Ukrainian land but also on the common Black Sea.

Although President Erdoğan took part in the "Crimean Platform" only in the format of a video message, his chief foreign policy adviser Cagataz Kilic was present at the summit, and also had the chance to personally listen to Ukrainian speakers and see the absence of "Ukraine fatigue" among Western partners. Russian bots and pro-Russian trolls in Türkiye are actively promoting this thesis - the West's unwillingness to continue helping Ukraine.

Clear messages from Turkish representatives that "Crimea is Ukraine" are also important, and the protection of the rights of the Crimean Tatars remains the focus of Türkiye's attention. The announced participation of the Speaker of the Turkish Mejlis, Numan Kurtulmuş, in the parliamentary summit of the Crimean Platform, scheduled for October, should "consolidate" this effect.

Last but not least, Fidan's visit is also dictated by the search for new economic opportunities for Turkish business - another priority of Erdoğan's new cabinet. The participation of Turkish contractors in the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine has long been on the agenda of bilateral relations. From Kyiv, Ankara expects the announcement of tenders and the strengthening of the fight against corruption; from the West - financing of relevant projects. It is obvious that both Ukraine and the EU expect Turkish companies to respect international law and the sanctions regime against Russia.

Thanking his colleague for the important visit and willingness to participate in the reconstruction of Ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba at the same time voiced Ukraine's expectations from Turkish partners: Türkiye's participation in the Zelenskyi Peace Formula, support for Ukraine's membership in NATO, strengthening the fight against violators of the sanctions regime and trade in Ukrainian grain stolen by Russia through Turkish ports.

It will be possible to say whether the parties heard each other's arguments only later.

What's more, after Baghdad and Kyiv, Hakan Fidan's next stop is Moscow.