Turkey’s President Erdogan in Moscow to ‘reset’ Russian Federation ties

Though the meeting between the two leaders had been in the making for months – facilitated by the Turkish businessman Cavit Çağlar and mediation from the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbaiev – the fact remains that it was Erdogan’s first visit overseas since the failed coup in mid-July, when Putin and Nazarbaiev both expressed their support for Erdogan before his North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies.

Mr Erdogan, who has said the trip represents a “new milestone”, told Mr Putin that ties had entered a “very different phase”, and thanked the Kremlin leader for his backing after the coup attempt.

Putin, for his part, was one of the first to contact Erdogan after the failed coup, despite the still-lingering fallout between Russia and Turkey over a Russian fighter jet downed over Turkish airspace previous year.

Erdogan’s trip to Russian Federation comes as Turkey’s relations with Europe and the United States are strained by what Ankara sees as Western concern about how it handled the abortive coup, in which more than 240 people were killed.

Erdogan declared a three-month state of emergency in Turkey on July 20.

“I believe that we have all the necessary prerequisites and opportunities for fully restoring the relations between our two countries which would help strengthen both regional and global stability”, Putin added.

“We don’t view this as a zero-sum game”, State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said during a press briefing.

Turkey and Russian Federation have reached a milestone in their relationship, with steps to normalize the ties between the two nations.

Putin welcomed Erdogan in a Tsarist-era palace just outside his home town and immediately signalled he was ready to improve relations with Turkey, which he said had gone from a historical high point to a very low level.

Mr Putin, one of the first foreign leaders to phone Mr Erdogan offering support after the coup attempt, shares none of the scruples of European Union leaders about the ensuing crackdown.

“It offered us moral support and showed Russia’s solidarity with Turkey”.

The leaders were expected to discuss the war in Syria in a subsequent closed-door session.

While Moscow backs Syrian President Bashar Assad throughout the nation’s civil war and further bolsters that support by launching an air campaign last September, Turkey is pushing for Assad’s removal.

Erdogan insisted in an interview with Russian media ahead of the talks that Assad must still go – a position opposed by Putin – but said that the conflict could now become the focus for renewed cooperation between the two sides.

Erdogan blames Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim cleric who lives in self-imposed exile in the US state of Pennsylvania, and his followers for the failed coup.