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.
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“In line with a government decree the work of the intergovernmental trade-economic cooperation commission is stopped and the work on the Turkish Stream agreement is frozen”, Minister Novak remarked.
A ministry official said the meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Turkey’s Mevlut Cavusoglu was scheduled for 3.30 pm local time.
Russian Federation on Wednesday accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his family of involvement in illegal oil trading with Islamic State jihadists, ratcheting up the heat in the bilateral dispute.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu hit back at the Russian accusations on Thursday, saying the claims were reminiscent of “lies” produced by the “Cold War-era Soviet propaganda machine”.
Russia’s RIA agency said earlier in the day, citing unnamed diplomatic sources, that the meeting would take place in Belgrade today, Reuters reported. They would believe in their own lies and expect the rest of the world to believe in them as well. “Some characteristics of the Soviet era are emerging one by one”.
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Later on Thursday Davutoglu visited Azerbaijan with the aim of increasing gas imports through the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP), a key project due to bring 16 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe.
