The meeting would be the first between senior Turkish officials since Turkey downed a Russian plane near its border with Syria, touching off a crisis between the two countries that previously enjoyed warm ties.
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Russian president Vladimir Putin snubbed an offer from Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan for a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the climate summit in Paris early this week.
“We met Minister Cavusoglu at his insistent request”, he said.
On Wednesday Lavrov said he was willing to meet Cavusoglu, who was “insisting” on holding talks on the sidelines of the council.
Istanbul, Turkey’s most populous city that accounts for more than a quarter of national output, is nearly entirely dependent on Russian gas imports through the Trans-Balkan pipeline, according to the Turkish official.
Meanwhile, Russia Today has reported that Lavrov said he heard nothing new from his Turkish counterpart regarding Ankara’s position on the downing of the Russian warplane. “The poor security is definitely a factor behind all the bearishness we are seeing”, said a Middle East polypropylene (PP) supplier that sells to Turkey.
Davutoglu also called upon the Russian side to enhance economic cooperation rather than impose sanctions. “But if someone thinks that after committing heinous war crimes, the murder of our people, it will end with tomatoes and limitations in construction and other fields, then they are deeply mistaken”, Putin said.
The premier stressed that Turkey did nothing but apply the rules of engagement by exercising its legitimate right to self-defense against an unidentified plane that entered Turkish airspace.
Turkey is seeking to buy additional gas from Qatar and Azerbaijan should Russian supplies decline, he said. “On top of this list is the crisis with Russian Federation, and the lira is losing value against the United States dollar [as a result]”, a Turkish trader said.
Pounded with threats and sanctions from Russia, Turkey on December 4 went to its Turkic cousin Azerbaijan to get some much-needed love and economic reassurance. “Our great leader Heydar Aliyev [the iconic late president of Azerbaijan and father of the current president] said ‘one nation, two states…'[Famous Azerbaijan poet] Bakhtiyar Vahabzade said ‘Turkey and Azerbaijan are two sons of one mother'”.
The incident with the Russian Su-24 bomber shot down by Turkish warplanes near the Turkish-Syrian border has greatly deteriorated relations between the two countries.
“We didn’t shot down the Russian plane over Syria’s territory…The plane was shot over Turkey’s territory. We heard nothing new”.
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While Putin has repeatedly said Russian troops in Syria won’t engage in ground combat, the statement signaled the high degree of the Russian military’s involvement in coordinating Syrian army action.
