Erdogan said in a joint press conference with Putin that it was prepared to supply Russian gas to Europe through the Turkish Stream gas pipeline.
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Their relations soured last November when Turkey shot down a Russian bomber on the Syrian border.
The Turkish president also revealed that Turkey and Russian Federation had agreed on establishing a joint investment fund and boosting cooperation in the defense sector.
The first round of talks between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Russian President Vladimir Putin ended with the leaders announcing there will be a second round of talks focusing on mainly the crisis in Syria.
In addition to the plane incident, the two countries back opposing sides in Syria’s nearly five-year civil war, with Russian Federation the key supporter of the Damascus regime while Turkey argues that the ouster of Assad is essential to solving the Syrian crisis.
Russia, which is conducting a bombing campaign in support of Erdogan’s foe President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, transformed the balance of the Syrian civil war last September when it intervened militarily, to Turkey’s consternation. In the press conference I heard Mr. Erdogan [say] that they still did not address that topic.
Mr Putin is said to have noted “the significant increase in the number of Russian tourists travelling to Turkey following the lifting of restrictions” during the call, with Mr Erdoğan pledging to help ensure their safety. Turkey has faced tensions with the US and the European Union after Erdogan’s mass arrests to root out coup suspects.
“What we are going to see is a longer-lasting but more pragmatic type of relationship built not on a personal friendship or ideology but on common material interests”, said Alexander Baunov, a senior associate at the Carnegie Moscow Center.
“This visit strikes me as a new milepost in our bilateral relations, starting again from a clean slate”, Mr Erdogan told Russia’s Tass news agency.
Turkey is pressing the United States hard to extradite Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom the government blames for the failed July 15 coup.
The Turkish leader also called for the TurkStream gas pipeline, a joint project with Russian Federation, to be “done as soon as possible”.
For his part Erdogan said that he hoped Russia-Turkish ties would become “more robust” and stressed how important it was that Putin offered his support after the coup.
Gulen strongly denies Ankara’s accusations and his lawyer on Friday said Turkey had failed to provide “a scintilla” of proof to support its claim.
“Russia and Turkey are supporting the fight [against Daesh], and both are part of the worldwide group trying to negotiate an end to fighting in Syria”, the Wall Street Journal quoted Trudeau. Turkey is experiencing problematic relations with the European Union and with the US.
Erdogan’s meeting with Putin was only his second with a foreign head of state since the coup, following a visit to Ankara by the Kazakh president on Friday. Turkey is accusing Fethullah Gulen, the religious cleric – now in Pennsylvania, in the USA, [of plotting the failed coup].
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Russian Federation provides more than half of Turkey’s gas imports.
