Turkey and Russia have restored their relations and are now working together to solve regional problems, the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said, speaking at the National Press Club in Washington.
"We have overcome our differences with Russia. At the moment our ties have been restored and we cooperate in solving a number of regional problems," TASS cited Cavusoglu as saying. The minister cited Syria and Azerbaijan as areas of successful of cooperation
At the same time, the Turkish minister said that Ankara continues to "support the territorial integrity of Georgia and Ukraine, including Crimea."
The head of the political research of the Center for Modern Turkish Studies, Yuri Mavashev, speaking with a correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that the degree of normalization of the Russian-Turkish relations was shown by the last meeting of the Presidents of Russia and Turkey, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "The development of bilateral relations is considered today in the categories of returning to a constructive course, Vladimir Putin said about it following negotiations with Erdogan. Turkey's recognition of the territorial integrity of Georgia and Ukraine does not prevent us from building full-fledged bilateral contacts with Ankara. Despite this, we are trying to increase the turnover up to $100 billion per year and set other ambitious goals and objectives, solving the problems in Syria along the way. Many of these problems have already been resolved, the rest are being negotiated in the constructive way," he stressed.
"The President of Russia has indicated his position on this issue in such a way that all the major aspects related to the Russian-Turkish cooperation are resolved in a working order, and all this is assessed positively," Yury Mavashev noted.
An associate professor of the Faculty of International Relations of the TOBB University of Economics and Technology (Ankara), Togrul Ismail, noted that the normalization of relations has not yet been fully implemented. "We cannot say that all problems are fully resolved and we do not have the issues that can lead us to tensions once again in the future. Cavusoglu's statement means that the crisis period has passed, Turkey and Russia have found a common language and established a dialogue. This is very important. But in order to completely overcome all the problems, we still need to work with each other for a long time," he said.
"We still have different views on the future of Syria. We have already reached mutual understanding on a number of Syrian issues, but there is still no general view of Turkey and Russia in the approach to the settlement of the Syrian crisis. In the economic terms, the restrictions on the supply of Turkish products to Russia have not yet been lifted. Of course, it is desirable that our relations are fully normalized and reach a level of strategic cooperation, and I think that we will be able to find a common language in the foreseeable future in all outstanding issues," Togrul Ismail concluded.
