Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) meets with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in St. Petersburg, Russia, on August 9, 2016.
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The Turkish president’s visit to Russian Federation is his first foreign trip since a failed military coup in Turkey last month, in which more than 240 people were killed.
Mr. Erdogan, who has said the trip represents a “new milestone”, told Mr. Putin that ties had entered a “very different phase” and thanked the Kremlin leader for his backing after the coup attempt.
Relations between Nato-member Turkey and Russia reached their nadir last November when a Turkish fighter shot down a Russian strike jet over northern Syria in a clearly planned ambush.
Putin gave his support to Turkey regarding the July 15 coup attempt and said he stood by the elected government, offering his condolences to the victims of the attempt.
Calling the Russian president his “dear friend”, Mr Erdogan said the two countries could mend relations and expand them further.
The failed coup saw renegade Turkish military officers using jets, helicopters and tanks try to take power in a night of violence that left more than 270 people dead.
“We intend to gradually cancel the special economic measures limiting Turkish companies’ activities in Russian market”, Putin said. “It offered us moral support and showed Russia’s solidarity with Turkey”.
Turkey has pressed the United States hard to extradite Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric the government blames for the failed coup. Gulen has repeatedly denied involvement.
Turkey has since requested Gulen’s extradition, however, the US says it is reviewing the request’s formality.
The dispute has strained U.S. Denmark’s ruling party said on Tuesday the EU should end accession negotiations with Turkey completely over Erdogan’s “undemocratic initiatives”, the latest European country to condemn developments in Turkey. Despite the timing of the Russian Federation visit, Ankara has insisted that Erdogan’s meeting with Putin is not meant to signal a fundamental shift in Turkish foreign policy. Mankoff said the tension between Turkey and the West creates for Moscow a “prime opportunity to pull Ankara closer”. The two leaders said also agreed to revive the gas pipeline project, known as TurkStream, meant to be supply Turkey with additional volumes of Russian gas and increase deliveries to Europe in the future.
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Russian Federation has been considering a number of projects to supply Europe with gas bypassing Ukraine – but the European Union has opposed most projects as it seeks to cut its reliance on gas from Moscow, which already provides a third of its supplies. Meanwhile, the TurkStream pipeline that was to have pumped 31.5 billion cubic meters of gas a year, and the Akkuyu nuclear power station should now be back on the agenda.
