Putin, Erdogan meet to mend ties

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday looked to rebuild ties as they met for the first time since Ankara downed one of Moscow’s warplanes in November 2015.

Erdogan’s visit to Putin’s hometown of Saint Petersburg is also his first foreign trip since the failed coup against him last month that sparked a purge of opponents and cast a shadow over Turkey’s relations with the West. “Your visit, despite a very difficult situation regarding domestic politics, indicates that we all want to restart dialogue and restore relations between Russia and Turkey,” Putin said after the two leaders shook hands.

The shooting down of a Russian fighter jet by a Turkish F-16 over the Syrian border last fall saw Putin slap economic sanctions on Turkey and launch a blistering war of words with Erdogan.

But in late June, Putin surprisingly accepted a letter expressing regret over the incident from Erdogan as an apology and quickly rolled back a ban on the sale of package holidays to Turkey and signalled Moscow would end measures against Turkish food imports and construction firms.

Putin was also one of the first leaders to offer Erdogan support after the failed coup attempt attempt and shares none of the scruples of Western leaders about the ensuing crackdown. Projects such as the TurkStream gas pipeline to Europe and a Russian-built nuclear power station in Turkey were put on ice with trade between the two countries falling 43 per cent to $6.1 billion in January-May this year. With Russia mired in economic crisis due to Western sanctions over Ukraine along with Turkey’s outlook flagging, both want to business to start again. Russia, which is conducting a bombing campaign in support of Erdogan’s foe Bashar al-Assad in Syria, transformed the balance of the civil war when it intervened last September.

“Russia is a main, key and very important player in establishing peace in Syria,” Erdogan said.