Russia, Turkey agrees to restore ties after diplomatic rift

Russia and Turkey on 9 August 2016 agreed to work toward restoring full relations. Russian President Vladimir Putin said rebuilding trade tied will be time consuming.

The agreement was reached at a meeting between the President Putin and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in Saint Petersburg.

Highlights of the meet

• Both the leaders patched their relations and pledged to restore close economic relations.

• President Putin said Russian trade sanctions on Turkey would be phased out step by step.

• President Erdogan said the two countries will restore their yearly bilateral trade target of 100 billion dollars and will speed up the resumption of charter flights from Russia to Turkey.

• Erdogan also said he is ready to build a natural gas pipeline with Russia and negotiate a deal to construct Turkey's first nuclear power plant.

• The two agreed to meet later to seek common ground over how to resolve the crisis in Syria.

It was Erdogan's first visit to Putin's hometown of Saint Petersburg after the failed coup in Turkey in July 2016.

Background

The diplomatic relations between the two nations went wrong in November 2015 when Turkey shot down a Russian bomber, the Su-24 jet, on the Syrian border. After this incident, Russia imposed trade sanctions and suspended Russian package tours to Turkey. The incident also put two energy projects, the TurkStream gas pipeline across the Black Sea and the Akkuyu nuclear plant being built by Russia's Rosatom in Turkey, on hold.

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