Russia and Turkey sign agreement removing trade restrictions

Russia and Turkey have signed a joint agreement on lifting mutual trade restrictions on the sidelines of the BSEC summit today.

The document was signed by deputy prime ministers of the two countries - Arkady Dvorkovich and Mehmet Simsek. Heads of governments - Dmitry Medvedev and Binali Yildirim - attended the signing ceremony, TASS reported.

Earlier on Monday Medvedev held talks with his Turkish counterpart on the sidelines of the summit. According to the Russian government’s press service, he also plans to meet Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during his visit to Istanbul.

The head of the press service of Rosselkhoznadzor Yulia Melano said, speaking to Vestnik Kavkaza, that the departmental inspection of Turkish fruit and vegetable enterprises was completed three days ago.

"Now we are summarizing the results of this inspection, the completion date has not yet been determined, but after that, decisions will be made regarding the resumption of supplies of certain types of products from the territory of Turkey. It should be understood that Rosselkhoznadzor conducted an inspection for compliance with the sanitary requirements of the Russian Federation only for those products, which were banned by the agency, in particular, pumpkin, lettuce and zucchini, but this inspection has no relation to such products as tomatoes, which were banned at the level of the country's leadership," she said.

An associate professor of the Faculty of International Relations of the TOBB University of Economics and Technology (Ankara), Togrul Ismail, stressed that the lifting of all the sanctions is an important step for the further development of bilateral economic relations. "Now it is possible to fully restore our economic ties. It will not be easy to return to the previous positions, but we have a potential. If all the issues related to the trade restrictions are resolved in the shortest possible time, it will greatly help our ties," he said.

Togrul Ismail recalled that Turkey attaches great importance to its economic development, in which Russia has an important place. "We have a positive experience of cooperation in the energy sector, and in the future, to the extent possible, we will develop our economic relations in the non-energy sector. Russia and Turkey have invested a lot in each other, and the more we develop our market economy, the more important they the will be. Russia is a serious partner which is important for Turkey not only in economic terms, and the strengthening of economic contacts will allow to make the political and socio-cultural links between our countries stronger," the associate professor of the Faculty of International Relations of the TOBB University of Economics and Technology (Ankara) concluded.

The head of the political research of the Center for Modern Turkish Studies, Yuri Mavashev, in turn, stressed that political issues is the locomotive of the Russian-Turkish relations, and economic cooperation is based on this basis.

Thus, he said, it is necessary to talk about economic cooperation from the point of view of the reached military-strategic agreements.

Mavashev drew attention to the fact that the document was signed at the BSEC summit. "It is very symbolic that all the restrictions were lifted at the BSEC summit, because this organization is useful as a demonstration that Russia and Turkey do not intend to let strangers into the Black Sea region," the political scientist noted.

According to him, the main risks for the relations between Russia and Turkey lie in the political, and not in the economic sphere. "Because any economic problems can be clarified. The Turkish Stream, the Akkuyu nuclear power plant are political moments, and if everything is fine in the political dimension, then economic issues can be easily clarified." BSEC is conditionally one boat in which Russia and Turkey Once again confirmed the intention to cooperate," the expert said.