Turkish MFA: Putin and Erdogan could meet before G-20 Summit in China
The Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, spoke about the possibility of a meeting that will soon take place between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to him the negotiations between the two Presidents could take place before the G20 Summit in China.
Çavuşoğlu said in his interview with NTV Channel on July 3rd that such a meeting could take place in late July or in early August 2016. According to him, the Foreign Ministries of both countries will hold consultations to prepare for it. Çavuşoğlu also reported that he has already invited his Russian colleague, Sergey Lavrov, to Antalya.
Earlier, the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs stated that the heads of both states agreed to meet at the G20 Summit that will take place on the 4th-5th of September in Hangzhou. However, Erdoğan later changed his mind, preferring to hold negotiations with Putin before the visit to China. The Press Secretary for the President of Russia, Dmitry Peskov, also kept open the possibility that the meeting will take place before the G20 Summit.
On the 27th of June, it became known that Erdoğan sent Putin a letter of apology addressed to the relatives of the deceased pilot of the Russian Su-24 that was shot down by Turkish F-16C fighters on the 24th of November near the Syrian-Turkish border.