Turkey and Russia resume negotiations on economic cooperation program
Russia has resumed negotiations with Turkey on a trade and economic cooperation program for 2016-2019, RBC reported.
According to a decree issued by the Russian government, the activities of the Russian-Turkish intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation has been resumed.
Work has also been restarted on the creation of a Russian-Turkish joint fund to finance investment projects in both countries.
Moscow and Ankara started negotiations on an economic cooperation program in 2014.
Relations between Russia and Turkey deteriorated significantly following the downing of a Russian Su-24 frontline bomber by a Turkish F-16 fighter over the Syrian-Turkish border in November of last year, prompting Moscow to impose sanctions against Turkey.
Following the incident, negotiations between the Kremlin and Ankara on economic cooperation were shelved.
Last month, however, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan submitted an official apology to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, over the incident.
Putin and Erdoğan held a telephone conversation on June 29, and the Russian President agreed to normalize relations with Turkey after receiving Erdoğan’s apology.
The next day, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that Russia would gradually begin lifting sanctions against Turkey, and the Kremlin lifted the ban on Russian citizens travelling to Turkey.
Between January and May, as a result of the economic sanctions, trade between Turkey and Russian fell by 43% compared to the same period in 2015.
Erdoğan and Putin are scheduled to meet in Russia in early August.
Turkey, as a NATO member state, has come under significant criticism from Europe and the US due to the large-scale purges that have come as a result of last week’s coup attempt. An estimated 58,000 people have been arrested, fired, or suspended, and the number continues to increase.