Preparations are underway for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s long-anticipated visit to Türkiye, the Kremlin said Tuesday.
“High-level contacts between Russia and Türkiye are on the agenda,” spokesperson Dmitriy Peskov told reporters in Moscow, assuring Russia would make the announcement “as soon as the two leaders agree on the date of the visit.”
This week, Turkish local media claimed that Putin might visit the republic in mid-February, some weeks after Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi is rumored to make a similar trip this week, which was twice postponed.
It would be Putin’s first overseas trip since he launched a military operation into Ukraine in February 2022, something Turkish and foreign ministers discussed earlier Tuesday on the sidelines of the United Nations Security Council meeting on the Middle East in New York.
Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan last met in the Russian city of Sochi in September on the heels of Ankara’s approval of Sweden’s long-awaited NATO application and a month after Moscow put on hold the key agreement that allowed Ukraine to export grain and other commodities from three Black Sea ports despite the 18-month war.
The pair had also discussed economic cooperation and the situation in Syria.
Ankara and Moscow have been at odds in Syria, where Russia has supported President Bashar Assad’s regime and Türkiye has backed his opposition in the decadelong civil war.
Since last year, with Iran’s contributions, Russia has been pushing for a Türkiye-Syria normalization, hosting negotiations with foreign ministers from both sides in Moscow, which hit a dead-end after Damascus said the withdrawal of Turkish troops from northeastern Syria would be the only way to restore ties.
Ankara fights terrorist group PKK’s Syrian offshoot YPG in northern Syria and often affirms it won’t halt operations until “terrorist groups threatening our country are eradicated.” The Turkish military has helped the Syrian opposition liberate areas occupied by Daesh and PKK/YPG, as well.
Officials also argue the PKK/YPG is “the greatest threat to Syria’s territorial integrity.”
