Meanwhile, in Cyprus, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said he would agree to meet with his Turkish counterpart this week to hear Turkey’s explanations on the downing of the Russian air force jet.
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Earlier on Thursday, Russia has suspended preparatory work on the Turkish Stream pipeline project, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak told reporters.
Speaking in Baku, Davutoglu said Turkey and Azerbaijan had agreed to complete the project before the original target date of mid-2018.
German Defense Minister Ursula Von der Leyen, left, and her Turkish counterpart Ismet Yilmaz flanked by two portraits of Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk as they pose for a photo before their talks, in Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Dec. 3…
This is the first time the top diplomats have met since Turkey shot down a Russian Su-24 bomber near the Syrian-Turkish border last week.
Russian President Vladimir Putin described the attack as a “stab in the back” carried out by “accomplices of terrorists”.
The announcement came hours after Russia said it halted talks on building a prospective pipeline to Turkey amid tensions over the downing of a Russian warplane.
Erdogan has rejected Putin’s demands to apologise over the incident, saying that Turkey was acting well within its rights to protect its border. The Turkey-Border is not the Turkey-Russia border.
Turkey’s leaders have mounted a charm offensive among regional energy producers in an effort to diversify supplies as relations with major natural gas provider Russia crumble following the downing of a Russian warplane by the Turkish airforce. It also slammed an array of economic sanctions on Turkey, including a ban on imports of fruit and vegetables and the sales of tourism packages.
The Turkish Stream gas pipeline, with an annual capacity of 63 billion cubic meters, was announced in December 2014.
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A Russian pilot, Oleg Peshkov, was shot down by militants on the ground in Syria after he bailed out of the plane.
