Russia ready to restore ties with Turkey - Putin

Russia is ready to re­store economic co­operation and other ties with Turkey, President Vladimir Putin has told his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in St Pe­tersburg.

It is Mr Erdogan’s first for­eign visit since an attempted coup last month. Mr Erdogan thanked Mr Putin, saying “your call straight after the coup at­tempt was very welcome”.

Russian-Turkish relations soured last November when Turkey shot down a Russian bomber on the Syrian bor­der. The visit comes as Tur­key’s ties with the West have cooled over criticism of Mr Erdogan’s purge of alleged coup-plotters.

 

Before leaving Turkey, Mr Erdogan referred to Pres­ident Putin as his “friend” and said he wanted to open a new page in relations with Russia.

 

“This visit strikes me as a new milestone in our bilat­eral relations, starting again from a clean slate,” Mr Er­dogan told Russia’s Tass news agency.

 

Mr Putin said their talks would cover “the whole range of our relations...in­cluding restoring econom­ic ties, combating terrorism”.

After Turkey shot down the Su-24 jet Russia im­posed trade sanctions and suspended Russian pack­age tours to Turkey.

 

The war of words over the downed Russian jet de­livered a big blow to trade. Turkey’s exports to Russia in the first half of this year fell to $737m (£567m) - a 60.5% slump compared to the same period last year, Turkey’s Daily Sabah re­ported.

 

The dispute put two ma­jor joint energy projects on hold - the TurkStream gas pipeline across the Black Sea and the Akkuyu nucle­ar plant being built by Rus­sia’s Rosatom in Turkey.

 

Japan says ties with China ‘deteriorating’Japan’s foreign minister has warned that ties with China are “signif­icantly deteriorating”, after Chinese vessels repeatedly entered disputed waters in the East China Sea.

 

Fumio Kishida said he had called China’s ambas­sador to protest against the “incursions”.