Putin may visit Turkey in October: Business leader

By Emre Gürkan Abay and Hakan Ceyhan Aydoğan

MOSCOW (AA) – Russian President Vladimir Putin may pay an official visit to Turkey in October, a senior Turkish business leader said Wednesday in Moscow.

“We expect that the restrictions on Turkish businessmen as well as the Turkish Stream [pipeline project] will be discussed during the visit," Rifat Hisarciklioglu, head of the Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges, told journalists, referring to hurdles remaining from a bilateral crisis last fall, recently resolved through top-level exchanges.

Hisarciklioglu and a delegation of Turkish businesspeople met with Alexey Likhachev, Russia’s first deputy minister of economic development, to boost trade opportunities between the countries.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitriy Peskov also said the Russian president may visit Turkey. “When all the preparations are completed, we will make the necessary announcements,” he said.

Putin’s last visit to Turkey was on Nov. 15-16, 2015 for the G20 summit in the Turkish Mediterranean resort of Antalya.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Putin also met in Russia this July, the first such meeting since the Turkish Air Force shot down a Russian jet over the Turkey-Syria border late last November.

The incident led to a suspension of relations between the two countries until it was resolved in a letter and subsequent telephone call between the leaders.