Moscow ready to cooperate with Turkey against terrorism

“We are ready for very close cooperation and very close engagement with the Turkish authorities in the fight against the terrorist threat”, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said during a conference on Russian-Turkish partnership in Moscow.

Lavrov’s comments come comments after a deadly blast that killed at least 97 people in Ankara last weekend.

Although Washington sent the refusal to Russia’s proposal on Wednesday, Moscow is ready to cooperate with the USA on Syrian issues in any format and through any channel, Lavrov said.

Russia says the United States has refused to host a delegation led by the Russian prime minister for discussions on Syria.

From September 30 Russian Federation has been launching airstrikes against IS positions and facilities in Syria in response to a request from Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad.

A senior Russian Air Forces commander has had talks with his Turkish counterparts at the General Staff’s headquarters in Ankara to discuss violations of Turkish air space on the Syrian border by Russian aircraft, the Turkish military said on Thursday.

Riyadh and Ankara fell out badly over Saudi’s support of the toppling by the Egyptian army of president Mohamed Morsi in 2013 who Turkey has strongly supported.

The minister also slammed remarks by Salih Muslim, the leader of the Syrian-based Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD, that threatened to respond to Turkey should it “attack” them. Moscow also said it wanted to retain good tied with Anakara. “Any action against Turkey will be punished without any hesitation”.

The Turkish diplomat hopes that such incidents will not reoccur because they do not correspond to the spirit of Moscow-Ankara relations.