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Putin praises quick restoration of Turkey-Russia ties

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he also welcomes Moscow-Ankara cooperation

MOSCOW, March 10. /TASS/. Relations between Russia and Turkey restore quickly, and Moscow is happy about it, Russia's President Vladimir Putin said.

"We are very happy our inter-state relations are restoring rather quickly," the Russian leader said during a meeting with Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday.

Quite a time passed after the 2014 meeting of the High-Level Russia-Turkey Cooperation Council, Putin said. "Many events have happened, and lately we have been working actively to bring the Russia-Turkey relations to the level worth our countries."

While speaking about cooperation in the economy, the Russian president referred to the Thursday conversation between Russian and Turkish prime ministers, during which the Russian Premier Dmitry Medvedev informed the counterpart on the steps Russia had undertaken to restore cooperation in the economy "in the full-format scale." Putin also stressed the continuing investment cooperation between the countries and implementation of major projects.

Cooperation on Syria

Putin pointed to the trustful and effective work of the military authorities and intelligence services of Russia and Turkey on Syria.

"We are working actively on settlement of most acute crises in the world, first of all in Syria," the Russian leader said during a meeting with Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday. "I am pleased to say, nobody has expected, but at the level of military authorities, intelligence services we have a very trustful, very effective dialogue."

Prior to the talks, the Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said "the topics related to security, to Syria, to the investigation of the murder of our ambassador Andrey Karlov in Ankara will be of great importance." He clarified that in regard to the Syrian issue, the parties will talk about "political settlement, interaction in the course of implementing military tasks." "The Turkish military is present in Syria and carries out military operations there, and the Russian military continues activities to support the Syrian armed forces - this requires very close interaction and coordination," he said. According to him, the presidents will also discuss interaction of civil societies and humanitarian contacts.

Turkish Stream, Akkuyu NPP projects

 Russia and Turkey are interacting proactively in construction of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline and Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant, Erdogan said.

"As far as implementation of the Turkish Stream and Akkuyu NPP projects are concerned, cooperation returns to its previous path and is increasingly developing," Erdogan said.

Defense industry and energy are among main elements of cooperation between economies of two countries, the President of Turkey said. Bilateral interaction in these spheres and some other issues are planned for discussion during today’s talks, Erdogan added.