“No country is affected so much by the Syrian crisis, like Turkey is”, Davutoglu said, adding that a refugee crisis arising from the Syrian conflict has cost Turkey nearly 8 billion USA dollars.
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The OSCE ministerial conference in Belgrade, Serbia, set the stage for the first face-to-face meeting of high-level Russian and Turkish officials since the Turkish air force shot down a Russian jet just on November 24.
He was speaking Friday during a visit to the Azerbaijan Diplomacy Academy in the country’s capital, Baku.
Russia has however suspended talks on its joint Turkish Stream project to pipe gas to Turkey and southern Europe, Russia’s energy minister said on December 3.
Turkey is heavily dependent on foreign oil and natural gas, importing 98 percent of its natural gas from Russian Federation and Iran and 90 percent of oil demand from Iraq. Putin called the destruction of the plane “a stab in the back by the accomplices of terrorists”.
No one believes in the anti-Turkish propaganda but Russian authorities, said the prime minister.
“Turkey is ready to discuss every topic with Russian Federation”.
The anti-Turkish statements made by Russian authorities are similar to the spirit of former USSR, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said earlier.
“Nobody can blame Turkey for this or wait any apology”.
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Turkish state broadcaster TRT quoted Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu as highlighting the importance of keeping an open line of communication with Russian Federation, although he reportedly said it would be unrealistic to expect all problems to be solved after just one meeting. “But it is unusual that it was voiced many days after the issue of illegal oil trade got to media, when we presented specific facts”, Lavrov said.
