Media members,
On behalf of our delegation, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Foreign Minister of the Republic of Türkiye Hakan Fidan for setting up, on a short notice, this meeting to discuss a wide range of bilateral and international issues. I would like to thank my colleague and friend for the traditionally gracious hospitality and the high level of organisation of the working visit of the Russian delegation.
We have noted with satisfaction that despite international tensions, the Russian-Turkish political dialogue has remained strong and shows progressive dynamics at all levels. President Putin and President Erdogan maintain regular communication. In addition to telephone calls, our leaders held two in-person meetings in 2024: one on July 3, 2024 on the sidelines of the SCO Heads of State Council meeting in Astana, and the other on October 23, 2024 during the BRICS summit in Kazan.
The pace of effective communication set by the heads of state is sustained by the foreign ministry officials, defence ministries, and intelligence services of the two countries. In 2024, Mr Fidan and I regularly exchanged insights on bilateral and international priorities. We met last time just a few days ago in Johannesburg on the sidelines of the G20 Ministerial Council.
We welcome the increased frequency of inter-parliamentary exchanges. On September 24-25, 2024, Türkiye’s Grand National Assembly Speaker Numan Kurtulmus paid an official visit to Moscow and was welcomed by President Vladimir Putin. He also held talks with the senior officials from the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation and delivered a speech at the Foreign Ministry’s Diplomatic Academy. This week (on February 26-27), Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko will pay an official visit to Ankara.
We discussed ways to expand bilateral trade and economic ties, including our extensive energy cooperation. We noted mutual interest and promising potential for cooperation in the financial and banking sector, transport and logistics, and industrial cooperation, as well as tourism.
Of course, we discussed in detail various aspects of joint work on the construction of Akkuyu NPP which is a strategic project. Russian and Turkish specialists work hard as a team to ensure the physical start-up of Power Plant 1. All four power plants are being built concurrently literally round-the-clock. There is serious potential for starting even more projects in this sphere.
We also covered safe operation of the TurkStream and Blue Stream gas pipelines which is important amid unending provocations by the Kiev regime, which seeks to use terrorist acts to undermine steady functioning of energy facilities, including pipelines. It is important that they operate without glitches. Türkiye is a major importer and transit hub of Russian natural gas, and any destabilisation of energy flows for whatever reason will not only weaken the Turkish gas industry, but also exacerbate inflation in the energy market as a whole, which will ultimately affect the ordinary consumer.
We informed our Turkish friends in detail about the Russia-US talks in Riyadh on February 18, which were quite positive since they provided opportunities to normalise the dialogue, despite numerous differences that are still there. However, without this dialogue, it’s unclear whether we will be able to iron out these differences. We will continue contacts with our US partners, as agreed.
We have reviewed in detail a number of international and regional issues, including the processes related to the situation in Ukraine. We stick to our position. We note with satisfaction that there is much more realism now in the position of many countries, which realise that it will be impossible to agree on anything without a lasting and durable agreement that would eliminate the root causes of this situation.
We conducted a thorough analysis of the situation in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict zone, and exchanged views on measures that need to be taken to ensure an immediate and sustainable ceasefire, to release hostages, and to resume the negotiating process based on UN Security Council resolutions, which focuses on the right of the Palestinian people to establish an independent state, which would coexist with Israel side by side in peace and security.
We expressed satisfaction with the level of Russia-Türkiye interaction on Syria and reaffirmed mutual interest in stepping up joint efforts to achieve settlement based on new realities.
We reviewed prospects for deepening cooperation in the South Caucasus, and placed emphasis on building confidence between the parties, rebuilding infrastructure and transport links, and stepping up economic activity, including on the basis of multilateral agreements signed as part of the 3+3 Regional Cooperation Platform (the three countries from the South Caucasus and their three neighbours Russia, Türkiye, and Iran).
I believe that this contact was useful overall. We will continue to work in Ankara. I feel confident that this meeting will contribute significantly to continued development of the multifaceted cooperation between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Türkiye.
To be continued…
