Russian President Vladimir Putin Will Hold Talks With His Turkish Counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan In Moscow On Wednesday

Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold talks with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Moscow on Wednesday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 23rd January, 2019) Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold talks with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Moscow on Wednesday.

The history of the Russian-Turkish relations is over five centuries old. The Embassy of the Russian Empire in Istanbul was opened on a permanent basis in 1701. The Soviet Union and the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey) established diplomatic relations on June 2, 1920.

The document outlining modern Russian-Turkish relations, the Treaty on the Principles of Relations between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Turkey, was signed in 1992.

Putin paid the first official visit to Turkey on December 5-6, 2004. After the meeting, leaders pledged in a joint declaration to develop bilateral relations into advanced, multifaceted partnership. The following years were characterized by intensive development of political and economic ties.

After a long period of dynamic development, the bilateral cooperation went downhill after the Turkish Air Force downed a Russian military aircraft in Syrian air space on November 24, 2015, which resulted in the death of the pilot, who was killed by local militants on the ground. Bilateral ties were de-facto frozen for seven months. In a message to Putin in June 2016, Erdogan expressed his desire to normalize relations and apologized for the death of the Russian pilot.

The process of gradual restoration of bilateral relations was launched on June 29, 2016 after a telephone conversation between Putin and Erdogan. The foreign ministers of the two countries held a working meeting in Sochi on July 1, 2016, as a follow-up to the agreements reached by the presidents.

On August 9, 2016, Putin and Erdogan met in the Russian city of St. Petersburg for the first time since eruption of the crisis in the bilateral relations. The meeting resulted in Putin and Erdogan expressing their readiness to restore cooperation in all areas.

The leaders of the two countries met on the eve of the G20 summit in the Chinese city of Hangzhou on September 3, 2016, and on the sidelines of the World Energy Congress in Istanbul a month later on October 10.

The Turkish president paid three working visits to Russia in 2017: on March 10, May 3 and November 13. Putin visited Turkey twice in the same year: in September and December. Putin and Erdogan also held brief talks on May 14 on the sidelines of the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, as well as on July 8 on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Germany's Hamburg.

Putin visited Turkey on April 3-4, 2018. The presidents launched the construction of the first unit of the Akkuyu nuclear power plant (NPP) and took part in a meeting of the high-level Russian-Turkish Cooperation Council on April, 3.

On April 4, Putin, Erdogan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani held a trilateral meeting of the leaders of the guarantor states of the Astana process to promote the Syrian peace process.

On July 9, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev attended the inauguration ceremony of the re-elected Turkish leader.

Another meeting of the presidents of Russia and Turkey was held on July 26 in the South African city of Johannesburg on the sidelines of the BRICS summit. The high-level negations focused on resolution of the Syrian conflict. Among other international issues, the attention was attached to the situations in the middle East, South Caucasus, Central Asia and Ukraine.

On September 7, Putin, Erdogan and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani held a trilateral meeting of the leaders of the guarantor states of the Astana process to promote the Syrian settlement. The leaders of Russia and Turkey also held a bilateral meeting.

On September 17, Erdogan made a working visit to the Russian resort city of Sochi. Putin and Erdogan discussed issues of bilateral cooperation and problems of the Syrian settlement. Following the talks between the two leaders, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar signed the Memorandum of Understanding on Stabilization of the Situation in Idlib's De-escalation Zone.

On October 27, Putin paid a working visit to Turkey. In Istanbul, the president took part in a meeting between the leaders of Russia, Turkey, Germany and France. Apart from that, Putin and Erdogan held a bilateral meeting.

On November 19, the Russian president visited Turkey again. In Istanbul, Putin and Erdogan participated in the ceremony marking completion of construction of the offshore section of the TurkStream gas pipeline. Putin had a conversation with Erdogan after the ceremony.

The next meeting of the leaders of the two countries was held on December 1, on the sidelines of the G20 summit in the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires.

The active dialogue is being supported by the countries' foreign ministries.

On March 14, 2018, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu held the 6th meeting of the Russian-Turkish Joint Strategic Planning Group.

The next bilateral meeting between the foreign ministers was held on April 28 in Moscow.

On August 2, Lavrov and Cavusoglu met on the sidelines of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) ministerial events in Singapore.

On August 13-14, Lavrov paid a working visit to Ankara. He spoke at the annual meeting of ambassadors and permanent representatives of Turkey to international organizations, and also held talks with his Turkish counterpart.

Cavusoglu paid a short working visit to Moscow on August 24 and met with Putin.

Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar and head of the National Intelligence Organization Hakan Fidan also attended the meeting.

On December 14, Lavrov and Cavusoglu held a meeting in the framework of a regular meeting of the Council of Foreign MInisters of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC).

The bilateral relations between Ankara and Moscow are also characterized by interparliamentary relations, and mutual contacts between ministries and departments.

The Syrian issue occupies a central position in the course of regular top- and high-level contacts. As part of the Syrian settlement efforts, Turkey, Russia and Iran initiated the Astana process, the Syrian National Dialogue Congress in Sochi, and thereby created conditions to boost the process of political settlement based on the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254. Among other international issues, significant attention is traditionally paid to the situation in the Middle East, South Caucasus and Central Asia and Ukraine.

Turkey is one of Russia's main foreign economic partners. In 2017, the bilateral trade increased by more than 37 percent compared to the previous year, amounting to $21.6 billion. The Russian exports to Turkey amounted to $18.2 billion, while the imports totaled $3.4 billion.

In January-November 2018, the trade between Russia and Turkey amounted to $23.2 billion, including $19.4 billion in Russian exports and $3.8 billion in imports.

The Russian exports to Turkey consist of energy products, metals and products made of them, food and agricultural commodities. The Russian imports include mostly food and agricultural commodities, machinery, equipment and transport vehicles, textiles and footwear.

The countries' energy partnership is developing and is a solid foundation for cooperation, primarily in the gas industry. Russia has been a reliable, leading supplier of natural gas to Turkey for many years, providing more than half of its needs for this type of fuel. The deliveries are determined in accordance with long-term contracts for the Blue Stream and Trans-Balkan gas pipelines.

Russia delivered to Turkey some 29 billion cubic meters (1,024 billion cubic feet) of gas in 2017, which is 17.3 percent more than in 2016. An intergovernmental agreement on construction of a new gas pipeline from Russia to Turkey, TurkStream, was signed in October 2016. The project envisages construction of a gas pipeline comprising two legs with a capacity of 15.75 billion cubic meters each. The first leg is set to deliver gas across the Black Sea to Turkey. The second leg will transport gas to European countries through Turkey and its launch is scheduled for late 2019.

On November 19, 2018, Gazprom completed construction of the offshore section of the TurkStream gas pipeline. The offshore section runs for over 930 kilometers (about 580 miles) from the Russkaya compressor station near the resort city of Anapa across the bottom of the Black Sea to the Turkish seaboard. The pipeline comes ashore near the Turkish village of Kiyikoy, some 60 miles west of Istanbul. Gas deliveries are scheduled to begin at the end of 2019.

Cooperation in the field of nuclear energy is developing within the framework of the countries' largest joint project, the Akkuyu nuclear power plant. The cost of the project is about $20 billion. Turkey hopes that the first reactor at the NPP would be launched in 2023.

On September 12, 2017, Moscow and Ankara signed a loan agreement to supply Russia's S-400 air defense systems to Ankara. Details of the agreement were not given due to the "specificity and sensitivity of the topic."

The Turkish defense minister announced in October 2018 that the country would begin installation of the Russian-made S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems in October 2019.

On January 1, 2016, Russia imposed an embargo on a number of products from Turkey in response to the Turkish Air Force's downing of a Russian Su-24 aircraft in Syria. Since fall 2016, the restrictions have been partially lifted, but the ban on deliveries of tomatoes, one of the most important products for Turkey, lasted until November 2017. On May 1, 2018, Russia lifted restrictions from a number of Turkey's tomato exporters, leaving a total quota for deliveries at 50,000 tonnes per year.

Russia and Turkey are also actively developing the bilateral investment cooperation. Currently, the mutual investments are more than $10 billion on each side. Turkey, in particular, invests in the wood industry, production of glass and textiles. The Russian companies, in turn, are interested in developing the Turkish infrastructure related to energy consumption.

Russia and Turkey have also resumed activities of the Intergovernmental Commission on Trade and Economic Cooperation with the 15th meeting of the commission held on October 21, 2017 in the Russian city of Kazan.

The process of restoring bilateral relations, which started in mid-2016, has already led to withdrawal of the ban on tour sales to Turkey. Additionally, the Russian government adopted a decree to allow resumption of charter flights to and from Turkey.

According to statistics published the Russian Federal Agency for Tourism, over 4.5 million Russians visited Turkey in 2017. The Association of Tour Operators of Russia said that in the first nine months of 2018, 5.72 million tourists from Russia visited Turkey, which is 25.4 percent more than in the same period of 2017.

In 2019, Russia and Turkey plan to hold the cross years of culture and tourism.