The Turkish and Russian foreign ministers will meet in Turkey next week to plan for a high-level cooperation council in Moscow this April, Russian Foreign Ministry said Thursday.
The Russian-Turkish joint strategic planning group will meet in the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya on March 12-13, co-chaired by Turkey's Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, said the Russian Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.
The event will pave the way for the April 14 summit of the High-Level Cooperation Council in Russia, she told reporters in Moscow.
"A detailed exchange of opinions on all issues on the bilateral agenda is planned in the context of preparations for the next meeting of the leaders from the two countries and the upcoming meeting of the High-Level Cooperation Council," Zakharova said.
Issues to be dealt with include expanding bilateral trade and cooperation in other fields, consular issues and boosting cultural and humanitarian cooperation in the context of the 2019 Turkey-Russia Year of Culture and Tourism. Foreign policy issues such as the Syrian and Ukrainian crises will also be discussed, Zakharova said.
Lavrov and Cavuşoğlu will also examine ways to boost the influence of Russian-Turkish cooperation in international organizations and sign a plan for foreign ministry consultations through 2020.
