Erdogan in Russia on Aug 9 to meet Putin; West will be watching closely

St Petersburg, Aug 9: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is set to jet into Russia on Tuesday (Aug 9) for his first meeting with counterpart Vladimir Putin since the two strongmen leaders began healing a bitter feud over Ankara's downing of a Russian warplane.

Erdogan's visit to Putin's hometown of Saint Petersburg is also his first foreign trip since the failed coup against him in July that sparked a purge of opponents and cast a shadow over Turkey's relations with the West. [Post coup, is Turkey getting close to Russia at West's expense?]

"This visit seems to me a new milestone in bilateral relations, beginning with a clean slate, and I personally, with all my heart and on behalf of the Turkish nation salute Mr Putin and all Russians," Erdogan said in an interview with Russian state media.

The shooting down of a Russian fighter jet by a Turkish F-16 over the Syrian border in November 2015 saw a furious Putin slap economic sanctions on Turkey and launch a blistering war of words with Erdogan that seemed to irrevocably damage burgeoning ties.

But in a shock reversal in June 2015, Putin accepted a personal expression of regret over the incident from Erdogan as an apology and immediately rolled back a ban on the sale of package holidays to Turkey and signalled Moscow would end measures against food imports and construction firms from the country.

Now in the wake of the failed July 15 coup attempt in NATO-member Turkey, ties between the two sides could be bolstered even further -- with Erdogan bluntly making it clear he feels let down by the United States and the European Union. Putin was one of the first foreign leaders to phone Erdogan offering support and, unsurprisingly, sharing none of the scruples of EU leaders about the ensuing crackdown.

"While Turkish-Russian ties are subject to their own uncertainties, this deterioration of relations with Western powers could accelerate a Turkish-Russian rapprochement," said analysts from the European Council on Foreign Relations. Relations between Turkey and Russia -- two powers vying for influence in the strategic Black Sea region and Middle East -- have never been straightforward and their predecessor Ottoman and Russian empires fought three centuries of war.

Yet before the plane crisis, Moscow and Ankara managed to prevent disputes on Syria and Ukraine harming strategic cooperation on issues like the TurkStream gas pipeline to Europe and a Russian-built nuclear power station in Turkey. Those projects were all put on ice with trade between the two countries falling 43 per cent to $6.1 billion in January-May in 2015 and Turkey's tourism industry seeing numbers from Russia fall by 93 per cent.

PTI