UPDATE - Turkish, Russian foreign ministers meet in New York for talks

UPDATES WITH RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY STATEMENT

By Diyar Guldogan

WASHINGTON (AA) - Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov met Monday in New York for talks.

The closed-door discussions between the top diplomats came a day before a UN Security Council meeting which will address the situation in the Middle East, including Gaza.

No further information was shared about the meeting.

Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that Lavrov and Fidan emphasized the importance of coordinating steps to find “mutually acceptable solutions” to regional issues, primarily regarding the situation in the Gaza Strip, Syria, the Middle East as a whole, the Black Sea zone, as well as in the Caucasus.

The two ministers also discussed the schedule of upcoming bilateral contacts as well as bilateral trade and economic ties, it said.

Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas on Oct. 7, killing at least 25,295 Palestinians and injuring 63,000. Nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

The Israeli offensive has left 85% of Gaza’s population internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

* Elena Teslova in Moscow contributed to this story