Their summit takes place on the sidelines of the G-20 summit, concluding nine months of hostility between the two capitals that was sparked by Turkish jets shooting down a Russian SU-24 warplane over the Syrian border on November 24, 2015.
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Turkey on Tuesday warned the United States that if it fails to extradite Fethullah Gulen, the Pennsylvania-based cleric Turkey accuses of planning a failed coup attempt, it would cause great harm to relations between the countries.
Answering journalists’ questions at Anadolu Agency’s Editors’ Desk in Ankara on Tuesday, Bekir Bozdag said Gulen’s direction of the July 15 coup plot was a “fact known by all”.
About the opposition’s hopes for excluding Bashar al-Assad from the solution to the crisis, Erdogan said: “In this regard, Iran can be included in this issue; we all desire to end the blood and deaths as soon as possible”.
The dispute has strained U.S.
Turkish president arrived in Russian Federation today.
On June 19, he personally rang the Turkish president to express his condolences for those killed in the violence, and to offer his backing for Erdogan’s government.
Ankara submitted an application to join the European Union in 1987, but the Turkish membership bid has always been stalled.
Mr Erdogan said Turkey was entering a “very different period” in relations with Russian Federation, and that closer ties between the two countries would help solve problems in the region.
But relations with Moscow also soured recently, most notably after Turkey shot down Russia’s fighter jet. This makes Erdogan and Putin’s meeting, the first since the jet downing, all the more surprising. Since then, about 18,000 people have been detained or arrested and almost 70,000 people suspected of links to Gulen have been suspended or dismissed from the civil service, judiciary, education, health care and the military.
The reboot of the relationship comes at a moment when Turkey is “increasingly isolated regionally and globally”, said Fadi Hakura, Turkey specialist at the Chatham House think tank in London.
He will also hope the prospect of closer relations with Moscow will make his North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies more cautious in their criticism of Turkey.
Mutual trade and tourism has suffered.
Russia imposed trade sanctions on Turkey and the number of Russian tourists visiting the country fell by 87% in the first half of 2016. “It is more of a transactional relationship driven by converging interests and challenging circumstances”, said Fadi Hakura, associate fellow at the Chatham House worldwide affairs think tank in London. For its part, Moscow wants Ankara to “recognize Russia’s national interests that are particularly evident in Syria at the moment”.
He noted three-quarters of Turkey’s direct foreign investment comes from Europe and its military is firmly rooted in North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, whereas it has a limited economic and trade relationship with Russian Federation focused primarily on natural gas and agriculture, as well as construction and low-tech manufacturing. Russia’s Defense Ministry has accused Turkey of aiding Islamic State (IS, previously ISIS/ISIL) in the past, citing data indicating that the militants are being re-supplied and re-armed from Turkey.
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Germany denied Monday it was concerned by the thaw in relations between Turkey and Russian Federation. But German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told the Bild daily he doesn’t expect Turkish-Russian relations to become “so close that Russia can offer an alternative to the security partnership of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation”. A number of huge projects have been suspended in between, such as the Akkuyu [nuclear power plant agreement, which was signed in 2010 between Russian Federation and Turkey].
