President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said Turkey and Russian Federation are determined to boost ties to levels even beyond what they were before the jet crisis erupted last November.
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Putin, prior to meeting with Erdogan Tuesday, said the visit “means that all us want the dialogue to be resumed and ties to be restored in the interests of the people of Turkey and Russian Federation”.
The relationship of the two nations soured after Turkey shot down a Russian plane that had flown into Turkish airspace back in November 2015.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed Tuesday that they would work to restore ties to where they were before the downing of a Russian SU-24 fighter jet in Syria last November.
They were also expected to discuss Syria, a conflict where the two countries find themselves on opposing sides, with Moscow backing President Bashar Al-Assad and Ankara wanting him out of power.
Relations between the two countries began to thaw in late June after Erdogan sent an apology letter to the Kremlin.
Putin responded by ordering his government to start rebuilding ties with Turkey, and when Erdogan faced the botched coup attempt on July 15, the Russian leader quickly offered his support.
Erdogan particularly mentioned Putin’s gesture, saying it “gladdened me, my colleagues and our people”.
But after such a bitter dispute – which saw Putin accuse Erdogan of stabbing profiting from an illegal oil trade with the Islamic State group – it will take a lot for the pair to reheat relations. Gulen has repeatedly denied any involvement.
“We consider the Turkish president as a key ally of the Syrian people”, al-Abda told Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency. Russia promptly cut ties with Turkey over the incident, banned Turkish vegetables, restricted Russian tourists’ access to Turkey and blocked some Turkish companies from working on its market. Since then, about 18,000 people have been detained or arrested and almost 70,000 others suspected of links to Gulen have been suspended or dismissed from the civil service, the judiciary, education, health care and the military.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are exclusively those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
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Erdogan, on the other hand, said the relation between Russian Federation and Turkey would become “more robust” and stressed Putin’s support for him after the coup attempt in which almost 300 people were killed. “We do not see (relations with other countries) as mutually exclusive, we see it as mutually empowering”.
