Putin says Russia and Turkey aim to revive pre-crisis cooperation

Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to restore cooperation with Turkey to the “pre-crisis” level speaking after talks with his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan in St.Petersburg on Tuesday (August 9).

“Our priority is reaching pre-crisis level of bilateral cooperation and it is a really pressing task, because only in the first five months of this year Russia-Turkey trade volume shrank by 43 percent,” Putin said at a joint news conference with Erdogan following the talks in St.Petersburg.

Russia imposed trade sanctions on Turkey in the wake of the shooting down of its warplane late November 2015 and the number of Russian tourists visiting the country fell 87 percent in the first half of 2016.

“We have to undertake diligent work to revive our trade and economic cooperation. This process has already been launched, but it will take some time,” Putin said.

The presidents stressed the importance of returning to the pre-crisis level in terms of Russian tourists visiting Turkey and discussed resumption of charter flights.

Tayyp Erdogan and Vladimir Putin also discussed the importance of the TurkStream pipeline project from to deliver natural gas from Russia to Turkey.

“There is no doubt about this part (of the gas pipeline) and the realisation of this part of the project can begin in the nearest future,” Russian president told media after the talks.

Putin welcomed Erdogan in a Tsarist-era Konstantinovsky palace just outside his home town and immediately signalled he was ready to improve relations with Turkey, which he said had gone from a historical high point to a very low level.