MOSCOW, July 9. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has told his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, that the course toward continuing weapons supplies to Kiev is destructive, the Russian foreign ministry said on Sunday after their telephone conversation.

"Ankara’s attention was drawn to the destructiveness of the course toward continuing weapons supplies to the Kiev regime. It was stressed that such steps could only lead to negative consequences," the ministry said.

The return of commanders of Ukraine’s Azov nationalist battalion (outlawed in Russia as a terrorist organization) to Ukraine were among the topics of telephone talks between Lavrov and Fidan. "The sides exchanged views on the regional agenda with a focus of recent development around Ukraine, including the situation with the return of Azov commanders from Istanbul to Kiev," the ministry said.

According to the ministry, Lavrov and Fidan reiterated the importance of strengthening trust in relations between their countries. "The ministers reiterated the necessity to preserve and strengthen the trust-based nature of relations between Moscow and Ankara on the basis of principle agreements between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan," it said.

"The sides also touched upon prospects for further cooperation on issues related to ensuring global food security in conditions of the inability of Western states to take steps necessary for the implementation of the United Nations Secretary General’s ‘package initiative,’" the ministry said, adding that the ministers also discussed several aspects of bilateral cooperation, including a schedule of further communication.

The phone call was initiated by the Turkish side.