(OSV News): Pietro Cardinal Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state offered to “eventually make the Vatican … available for a direct meeting” between Ukraine and Russia, as the May 16 talks between the two nations in Istanbul, Turkey, ended after just two hours, with little result except for a mutual prisoner exchange.
Cardinal Parolin was quoted by La Stampa as saying that “the outcome of the Istanbul summit is tragic.” He said the Vatican “hoped that a process could be started, perhaps slowly but with a peaceful solution to the conflict, and instead we are back to the beginning.”
The Istanbul meeting, hosted by the government of Turkey with the US urging the two sides to participate, was aimed at securing a 30-day unconditional ceasefire in the three-year full-scale war—something Ukraine has repeatedly called for, although Russia has insisted on demands that British prime minister, Keir Starmer, called “unacceptable.”
Cardinal Parolin had spoken with media ahead of the talks, while he was attending a May 14-15 conference on Ukraine hosted by the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.
“We always hope there are openings for peace,” he said. “We are pleased that there is finally the possibility of a direct meeting. We hope that the existing issues can be resolved there and that a genuine peace process can begin.” The cardinal had also expressed hope that the Istanbul meeting might have marked “a serious starting point” to end the war.
Ukraine president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, had sought a face-to-face meeting with Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, at the gathering. After Putin dispatched a low-level delegation to Istanbul, Zelenskyy instead sent a team led by his defense minister.
…We are pleased that there is finally the possibility of a direct meeting. We hope that the existing issues can be resolved there and that a genuine peace process can begin
Pietro Cardinal Parolin
According to La Stampa, Cardinal Parolin spoke about the Vatican’s post-Istanbul offer on the sidelines of an event about the summit. It quoted the cardinal as saying on May 16, “Now we will see what to do but the situation is very difficult, dramatic.”
The cardinal added that Pope Leo XIV intends “to eventually make the Vatican, the Holy See, available for a direct meeting between the two parties.”
According to the Associated Press, US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, confirmed that the Vatican could be a meeting venue for Russia-Ukraine peace talks before meeting on May 17 with Matteo Cardinal Zuppi of Bologna, Italy, who has served as a papal peace envoy between Ukraine and Russia since 2023.
“I think it’s a place that both sides would be comfortable going,” Rubio told reporters at the US Embassy in Rome.
On May 19, US president, Donald Trump and Putin had a two hour call after which the former posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, that he believed the call “went very well.”
[Pope Leo XIV intends] to eventually make the Vatican, the Holy See, available for a direct meeting between the two parties Cardinal Parolin
Trump said, “Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a Ceasefire and, more importantly, an END to the War.” He said, “Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine will begin immediately.”
Trump said he had informed Zelenskyy; as well as European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen; Emmanuel Macron, president of France; Giorgia Meloni prime minister of Italy; Friedrich Merz of chancellor Germany and Alexander Stubb, president of Finland.
Russia’s war on Ukraine continues attacks initiated in 2014, and has been declared a genocide in two joint reports from the New Lines Institute and the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights. The International Criminal Court has so far issued six arrest warrants for Russian officials, including Putin, for war crimes.
