Presidents Putin and Erdogan meet for bilateral talks in Sochi

World Today

Presidents Putin and Erdogan meet for bilateral talks in Sochi

The Presidents of Russia and Turkey met in southern Russia. Major points of their talks are the fight against terrorism and the war in Syria.

The talks in Sochi brought together the leaders of two countries once at odds over the Syrian conflict. Recently they’ve been more cooperative. CGTN’s Daria Bondarchuk is in Moscow with more.

Relations between Moscow and Ankara were almost fully restored. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin made the announcement in a meeting with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan at his residence in Sochi.

It’s their fifth meeting this year; a sign of an ever strengthening relation that went through a test when Turkey shot down a Russian military jet near the Syria-Turkey border in 2015. Since then, Putin said that bilateral trade has bounced back up and continues to grow.

Turkey’s Erdogan also praised productive cooperation with Moscow regarding Syria and said a political resolution of the Syrian conflict is growing.

Both leaders stressed their joint efforts and said the inclusion of Iran in the Astana conference on crisis settlement has led to a drop in violence in Syria.

Some Russian experts said that despite Moscow and Ankara supporting rival sides in the Syrian conflict, their continued cooperation on the issue could produce positive results.

Putin and Erdogan agreed to further promote a political solution for the Syrian crisis. And also to work on removing the remaining trade and visa restrictions to help achieve a $100 million benchmark set for bilateral economic ties.