Turkey, Russia foreign ministers to meet on sidelines of BSEC meeting on July 1, Ankara says

Presidential Spokesperson İbrahim Kalın said on Tuesday that Turkish Foreign Minister will be meeting his Russian counterpart on July 1 on the sidelines of a Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) meeting in the Russian resort of Sochi.

Speaking to reporters in Ankara, Kalın said that Turkey is ready to ‘open a new chapter in Turkish-Russian relations’ after months of acrimony, which began after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane on its border with Syria last November.

Meanwhile, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are due to speak by phone Wednesday for the first time since the incident prompted an unprecedented crisis in Moscow-Ankara ties.

“We expect relations to be normalized in areas of politics, trade and energy,” Kalın said.

On Monday, the Kremlin said Erdoğan apologized over the plane incident, but Kalın denied this, saying the Turkish leader’s letter had “expressed deep regrets” to the family of the pilots, rather than offering an outright diplomatic apology.

Kalın added that there were no plans to offer compensation, but suggested Ankara may make a “gesture” to the family of the plane’s slain pilot to “ease their sorrow”.

Meanwhile, speaking at the Justice and Development (AK Party) Party’s weekly parliamentary group meeting on Tuesday, Prime Minister Yıldırım said that Turkey will increase the number of its friends and will decrease the number of its enemies.

”We aim to improve our relations not only with Russia and Egypt but also with all countries around the Black Sea and Mediterranean,” the prime minister stated.

”As Turkey, our basic principle is to want for others what we want for ourselves,” Yıldırım said while noting that crises are exceptions but normalization is essential for Turkey.