Russia and Turkey to discuss mutual ties

President Vladimir Putin has worked out the schedule of his visits to other countries till the end of the year. On December 3, he will meet with Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, the Voice of Russia reports.

Initially, this visit was planned for October 14 and 15, but it was postponed because Russia and Turkey had not reached a number of agreements concerning both the two countries’ relations and problems of the world policy by that time.

“What is the current state of Russian-Indian relations?”, the Voice of Russia asked political analyst Stanislav Tarasov.

“The last time when Mr. Putin and Mr. Erdogan met personally was in Moscow in June,” Mr. Tarasov says. “Then, the sides agreed that further development of relations between Russia and Turkey would be beneficial for both. The two leaders were satisfied with the fact that the volume of trade between their countries reached $ 35 bln a year, but said that it would be quite possible to increase it to $ 100 bln or even $ 150 bln a year. Thus, it is only logical that at the coming meeting in Istanbul, Mr. Putin and Mr. Erdogan will first of all discuss issues of economic cooperation and cooperation in the sphere of energy. One of Russia’s ambitious projects is to build a gas pipeline from Russia to Europe across the Black Sea (this project is known as “The South Stream”). Because a part of the Black Sea’s territory belongs to Turkey, it would have been impossible to reach an international agreement concerning the pipeline’s construction without Turkey’s participation.”

Besides economic cooperation, the Russian President and the Turkish Prime Minister will most likely discuss the situation in the Middle East – first of all, the conflict in Syria. During his meeting with Mr. Putin in June, Mr. Erdogan said that his country backs the decisions concerning how to solve the Syrian conflict, which were taken at an international meeting in Geneva in June 2012 (as it is known, Turkey signed the resolution adopted at this meeting). But now, Turkey’s authorities do not rule out that Turkey may start a military operation in Syria.