President Tayyip Erdogan was quoted by Turkish media as stating on Saturday that Turkey is committed to pursuing a peace conversation between Russia and Ukraine as he accused the US and other Western nations of inciting Moscow.

Erdogan was reported as saying, without further explanation, “The West, and notably the U.S., is assaulting Russia seemingly continuously” by the state broadcaster TRT and other media.

“Of course, Russia is displaying great resistance in the face of all this,” Erdogan was quoted as telling reporters on a flight from Uzbekistan.

Western countries have armed Kyiv and provided other assistance and have also imposed stringent sanctions on Moscow since its invasion of Ukraine in February.

“We are working on how to create a peace corridor here, like we had the grain corridor. We think the best way for this is a path from dialogue to peace,” Erdogan said, adding Ukraine’s view would be important.

Turkey, a member of NATO, conducted meetings between delegations from Ukraine and Russia early this year and has made an effort to strike a compromise between criticizing the invasion and opposing the sanctions.

Over the past four months, a deal was mediated by Ankara and the U.N. to resume Ukrainian grain exports from Black Sea ports. Erdogan stated that while proposing a specific time frame for the deal’s extension past its Nov. 19 deadline “would be wrong,” it should continue for “as long as possible.”