Putin lifts Turkey restrictions after Erdogan call

MOSCOW, Russia (3rd UPDATE) – President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, June 29, lifted travel restrictions to Turkey and ordered trade normalized after he mended ties with counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in their first call since Ankara downed a Russian jet.

In the wake of the incident last November Moscow slapped a range of sanctions on Ankara, including an embargo on some Turkish food products, as well as a ban on charter flights and sales of package tours to the country and the reintroduction of visas for Turkish visitors.

“I want to start with the question of tourism… we are lifting the administrative restrictions in this area,” Putin told government ministers in televised comments.

“I ask that the Russian government begins the process of normalising general trade and economic ties with Turkey,” he said.

The move came hours as Turkey reeled from a triple suicide bombing at Istanbul’s main international airport on Tuesday which left 41 people dead , including 13 foreigners.

The assault, at the start of Turkey’s crucial tourist season, was the latest in a wave of attacks in Istanbul and the capital Ankara blamed either on Islamic State (ISIS) jihadists or Kurdish rebels.

The diplomatic breakthrough with Russia was forged in a phone call by Putin to Erdogan after the Turkish strongman on Monday sent a letter to the Kremlin leader that Moscow said contained an apology.

‘Stab in the back’

In a statement, the Kremlin said that Putin expressed “profound condolences” over the bombing and shooting attack at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport.

The Turkish presidency said in a statement that Erdogan and Putin “highlighted the importance of the normalisation of bilateral relations between Turkey and Russia.”

Erdogan is expected to meet with Putin in September on the sidelines of the forthcoming G20 summit in China for their first face-to-face talks since the start of the diplomatic row, a Turkish official told AFP on Wednesday speaking on condition of anonymity.

The downing of the Russian warplane in Syria slammed the brakes on burgeoning relations between Russia and Turkey and sparked a bitter war of words between the leaders.

Putin called it a “stab in the back” and demanded an apology from Erdogan, who he also accused of being involved in the illegal oil trade with the Islamic State group.

Ankara has said Erdogan expressed his “regret” over the incident in Monday’s letter to Putin and asked the family of the pilot who died to “excuse us”, but has not explicitly confirmed he apologized for shooting down the plane.

Erdogan’s diplomatic blitz

Turkey has argued that the Russian plane strayed into its airspace and ignored repeated warnings, but Russia insisted it did not cross the border and accused Turkey of a “planned provocation.”

The countries are on opposing sides in the Syrian conflict, with Ankara backing rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad while Moscow is one of his last remaining allies.

The crisis in relations has severely hit Turkey’s tourism industry, with the number of Russian tourists drastically declining in holiday resorts along the Mediterranean coast.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich told local news wires that the ban on charter flights and the product embargo would formally be lifted in the “next few days”.

Dmitry Gordin, the vice president of Russia’s association of tour operators, predicted on television that “roughly within three months we can return the flow of tourists to the same level as before sales were shut down.”

Russia and Turkey also halted talks in December on the joint TurkStream project, to pipe gas to Turkey and southern Europe but officials suggested negotiations might start again.

Russia is currently suffering its longest economic recession since Putin came to power over 16 years ago due to Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis and the fall in oil prices.

Erdogan has been on a diplomatic blitz in recent days that also saw him restore ties with Israel after years of acrimony over a deadly 2010 raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla. – Rappler.com