The announcement by Mevlut Cavusoglu came a day after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Russia’s Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg for the first time since the countries agreed to mend relations soured by Turkey’s downing of a Russian plane in November.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan during their meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia.
“We lived through a very complicated moment in relations between our two states and we very much want to overcome these difficulties”, said Putin at the joint press conference at the end of his talks with Erdogan.
He insisted it would take “painstaking work” and “some time” to return to previous trade levels as Russian Federation rolls back punishing economic sanctions against Ankara, but both sides said they wanted to restart major energy projects hit by the crisis.
Erdogan blames Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim cleric who lives in self-imposed exile in the USA state of Pennsylvania, and his followers for the failed coup. But the USA says Turkey must provide solid evidence before such a move can be considered. Many Turks believed their allies in the West had failed to condemn to coup attempt harshly enough, and were too critical of the mass arrests.
They also held a separate meeting to discuss the conflict in Syria – despite their divergent views.
Erdogan declared a three-month state of emergency in Turkey on July 20.
Putin said Tuesday that charter flights to Turkey could resume “in the near future” but “painstaking work is ahead to revive trade and economic cooperation”.
“We see the efforts of Egypt in trying to increase its relations with FETO [Fetullah Terrorist Organization] and vice versa but there is no concrete information about Gulen going to Egypt”, he said.
President Erdogan particularly mentioned Mr Putin’s gesture, saying it “gladdened me, my colleagues and our people”. Meanwhile, a group of servicemen announced about transition of power to them.
Erdogan said Turkey was entering a “very different period” in its relations with Russian Federation, and that solidarity between the two countries would help the resolution of regional problems.
The Turkish leader also called for the TurkStream gas pipeline, a joint project with Russian Federation, to be “done as soon as possible”.
Yenel sought to reassure European partners over the March refugee deal that ended the flow of migrants into Europe from Turkey but which the Turkish authorities have warned may collapse if the EU does not allow visa-free travels for Turkish passport-holders.
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She added that Turkey and Russian Federation were both sovereign states and had a lot of common goals such as the fight against Daesh and efforts for a political solution for Syria.
