World
Putin, Erdogan agree to prepare for potential meeting: Kremlin
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed during a telephone conversation to prepare for a potential meeting in person, the Kremlin reported on Wednesday.
“[The sides] agreed to continue contacts at various levels, including in the context of preparations for the potential meeting between the two leaders,” the Kremlin said.
The Turkish Communications Directorate said the two leaders agreed on Putin's visit to Turkey.
On June 29, Putin told reporters that he did not rule out a visit to Turkey. At the same time, he said that Erdogan's coming to Russia was also possible. Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov earlier said that Putin’s visit to Turkey was planned by Moscow and Ankara, but the sides had not yet agreed on the dates, state news agency TASS reported.
Their phone conversation was the first since June 24, when the grain deal was terminated and since the release to Kyiv of the leaders of the Azov nationalist battalion, which is banned in Russia. Tensions between Moscow and Ankara heightened in early July when Kyiv brought home five former commanders of Ukraine’s garrison in Mariupol who were meant to remain in Turkey according to last year’s prisoner exchange.
At the time, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Ankara had guaranteed under the exchange agreement to keep the Ukrainian men in Turkey and objected that Moscow had not been informed.
Erdogan is also likely to try to persuade Putin to return to the Black Sea grain deal which Moscow withdrew from last month and has since attacked Ukrainian agriculture port infrastructure.
Additionally, Russia announced that it will start considering all vessels traveling on the Black Sea heading to Ukrainian ports as “potential military cargo carriers”, declaring a number of areas in the northwestern and southeastern parts of the international waters of the Black Sea as “temporarily dangerous for navigation,” and adding that the flag countries of ships traveling to Ukrainian ports will be considered parties to the conflict on Kyiv’s side.
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