Putin offers Turkey’s Erdogan closer ties

Russia and Turkey have started a new stage in their relationships. Now Vladimir Putin offers to President Erdogan more close ties than before. About readiness of Russia to restore economic co-operation with Turkey Putin has told Recep Tayyip Erdogan in St Petersburg.

President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Mr Erdogan’s have met in Saint Petersburg. It is the first foreign visit of Turkish leader since an attempted coup last month. Recep Erdogan thanked Mr Putin, saying “your call straight after the coup attempt was very welcome”.

The restoring of the Russian-Turkish relations is one of the best news in last period. Last November incident with Russian bomber SU 24 has cost Turkey too much, Russia stopped relations with Turkey. So the recent meeting of two leaders is an extremely important event in the political life of both countries.

Actually, for centuries two powerful states — Russia and Turkey — have been rivals in Black Sea region. That was another reason for Turkey to be angry with the Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. Turkey was very concerned the rights of Crimean Tatars, the Muslim Tatars have long had close ties to Turkey.