Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he wants to improve relations with Russia, but does not understand what kind of “first step” Moscow expects from him. Russian authorities have repeatedly demanded an apology for the downing of the Su-24

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Photo: Reuters/Pixstream)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that he wants to improve relations with Russia, but does not understand what kind of “first step” in improving relations Moscow expects from Ankara. He stated this in Izmir before departing for an African tour, reports Reuters .

Erdogan noted that countries must work together to improve relations. However, he stressed that he was concerned that the relationship could be sacrificed due to “pilot error.”

At a press conference on May 27 following his visit to Greece, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia wants to restore relations with Turkey , but Ankara has not yet taken “concrete steps” for this. “We hear statements [from the Turkish side] about the desire to resume relations. We also want to renew relations. We didn’t destroy them,” Putin said.

According to the Russian President, “besides the desire to renew relations, something else needs to be done for this.” Moscow is in contact with Ankara and expects “some concrete steps” on its part, the Russian president emphasized. Putin recalled that Russia had not heard Turkey’s apologies or statements of readiness to compensate for the damage. Previously, Russian politicians have repeatedly stated that they demand an apology from Turkey for the downing of the plane in November 2015.

Commenting on this statement by Putin, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu the day before, May 30, called for “the creation of a joint working group to discuss the parties’ future steps.” The Kremlin considered the proposal insufficient. “No working group is able to solve this problem; only the Turkish leadership can do this, from which Moscow would expect the actions that President Putin spoke about in Athens,” said the Russian president’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov.

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Also the day before, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said that there are no insoluble problems in Russian-Turkish relations. He stressed that he believed relations with Russia would be restored “in a short time,” adding that no country could afford to sacrifice relations with the other. The Turkish Deputy Prime Minister said that he considers it possible to quickly restore relations between Russia and Turkey .

Relations between Russia and Turkey deteriorated after the Turkish Air Force shot down a Russian Su-24 bomber on the Syrian-Turkish border in November 2015. Moscow, in response, introduced a number of economic restrictions against Ankara.

Erdogan stated a lack of understanding of Moscow's demands to improve relations