Ankara supports the establishment of a working group that will work on the normalization of relations with Moscow, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu stated.
"Putin said he wants to restore ties and expects us to take steps. We also seek normalization. We suggest creating a joint working group so that these steps are taken," Cavusoglu said, TASS reports.
The minister said the working group "may become official or non-official, as the Russian side wishes to."
In turn, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said that there are no unsolvable problems in Turkish-Russian ties. "We had no intentions of downing the Russian jet. We expect that our relations with Russia will be improved in the near future. Neither Russia, nor Turkey can sacrifice them. Between [our] two countries there are no problems which one cannot solve," Sputnik quotes him as saying.
Recall that on Friday, the desire to restore old ties between the two connections was expressed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. "We also want to restore relations. But it wasn't us who destroyed them," he said. At the same time, the head of state complained about absence of any concrete steps in this direction by Turkey.
Relations between the two countries have deteriorated when on November 24th, Russian Su-24 was shot down by Turkish aircraft 1 km away from the border with Turkey in Latakia.
In an interview to Vestnik Kavkaza, president of the National Strategy Institute Mikhail Remizov, first of all, drew attention to the fact that the first step that Turkey and Russia are able to do to restore relations is to stop mutual public unfriendly gestures, and this step has already been taken, judging by recent statements at the highest level. "You should not expect more than that in the foreseeable future," he skeptically added.
The expert explained that the key point for a complete restoration of relations between Russia and Turkey is the end of conflict around Syria. "The intensity of this conflict slightly decreased, but still, peace wasn't reached in Syria. Moreover, it became clear that further settlement process can be quite long. In this connection, Turkey is really interested in de-escalation of relations with Russia, and to a greater degree, Ankara is interested in trade and economic issues, while Moscow is in geopolitics," he pointed out.
According to Turkish political scientist Tonzhu Tosan, crisis in relations between the two countries should be finally settled. "The deterioration of relations after downed plane, along with other areas, also affected the education, and we, academics, professors, are depressed over this situation, because all ongoing projects were forced to stop," he said.
He stressed that Cavusoglu's statement is very important for the normalization of relations. "Undoubtedly, this call is very important and today I have a feeling that Turkish authorities are really trying to make an attempt to restore bilateral relations with Russia," he noted.
