Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Turkey in the coming days, according to Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, without specifying the date.
“Mr Putin’s visit was planned.
It should have happened sooner.
This visit will give us the opportunity to address many questions,”
he declared on the public channel TRT Haber.
The media mentioned the date of February 12, but the Turkish presidency, questioned several times by AFP, refused to confirm or specify where President Recep Tayyip Erdogan plans to receive his Russian counterpart.
“Regular” meetings
Turkey, which will be the first NATO member country to which Mr. Putin will visit since the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, approved last month, after twenty months of suspense, the entry of Sweden in the Atlantic Alliance.
“Our presidents meet regularly
,” recalled Mr. Fidan.
Their last tête-à-tête took place in September 2023 in Sochi, at Mr. Putin's vacation residence, but since then the two leaders have spoken frequently by telephone.
Since the start of the war, Mr. Erdogan has managed to manage his relations with both Ukraine and Russia.
Turkey notably helps Moscow to circumvent Western sanctions, which it has not joined, by continuing its trade with Russia.
“Many questions will be on the table
,” said Mr. Fidan, who notably cited energy, the situation in the Palestinian territory of Gaza, “the grain corridor” in the Black Sea, which allowed the secure export of Ukrainian agricultural products and which Moscow ended after a year, in the summer of 2023.
Syria will also be on the agenda, slipped the Turkish minister: although in agreement on numerous international issues, Moscow and Ankara disagree on the presence of fighters from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and their allies in northeastern Syria.
In 2019, an agreement between Ankara and Moscow put an end to a Turkish offensive on the promise of the creation of a 30 km “security zone” to protect Turkey from attacks that could come from Syrian territory.
Turkey criticizes Russia for not respecting these agreements.