Turkey, Russia talks: ‘We did not hear anything new’

The Turkish Stream gas pipeline, with an annual capacity of 63 billion cubic meters, was announced in December 2014.

“We heard nothing new”, Lavrov told a televised news conference. Russia also scrapped talks with Turkey on building a pipeline to export Russian natural gas to Europe.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Thursday after talks in Baku with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev that the TANAP gas project could be completed before its original target, 2018. It has also accused Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and his family of benefiting from the smuggling of oil from Islamic State-controlled territory in Syria and Iraq.

Both Russian pilots ejected from the plane after being shot down by Turkish F-16s, an incident for which Russia has demanded a full apology. The Turkish daily reported that Turkey’s gas grid BOTAS and Qatar’s national oil Energy Company eventually signed a memorandum of understanding deepening their cooperation. “We confirmed our views”, Lavrov said.

In such a scenario, the West finds it very hard to decide which side to take: the history of Italian Unity began with an Anglo-French-Piedmontese alliance to defend Turkey against Russian Federation in the Crimean War, but ended with the Anglo-French-Italian alliance to enable Russian Federation to seize Constantinople from Turkey in World War I.

He recalled Ankara’s support for Moscow after the US and European Union imposed sanctions on Russian Federation for its role in the conflict in Ukraine.

Turkey hoped that Russian Federation has got rid of the USSR’s propaganda rhetoric, but facts show that it is not exactly that way, he said.

Thursday saw the first high-level contact between Ankara and Moscow during a private meeting of Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines of the OSCE summit in the Serbian capital, Belgrade.

“We met with the head of the Turkish Foreign Ministry on his insistent request”.

“The stronger Turkey is, the greater is the power of Azerbaijan”. “It is being prepared to become a Russian military base”, the military source said.

The growing diplomatic spat between Turkey and Russia, which escalated after the former’s downing of a Russian fighter jet, came on top of these concerns, with sector representatives fearing the new uncertainty in trade relations between the two economic partners. When governments adopt sanctions it is not uncommon for local authorities to become over-zealous, imposing oppressive regulations on ordinary business transactions by investors from the other country.