Russian media covers Russia-Iran-Turkey summit

By Elena Teslova

MOSCOW (AA) - Russian media widely covered on Tuesday the results of the trilateral summit between the presidents of Russia, Turkey and Iran on Syria in Ankara.

Russian Daily Izvestia reported that the summit ended with comprehensive results: the leaders announced the completion of the formation of the Syrian constitutional committee, confirmed the cessation of hostilities and voiced new ideas how to resolve humanitarian issues. It added, however, that more work was needed.

Kommersant explained that the rapid development in Russian-Turkish relations was due to frequent meetings between presidents Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Putin and Erdogan set records on a number of bilateral meetings and "seem to want to break their own records", the newspaper said.

"The president of Russia seems to meet with the president of Turkey more often with his own prime minister," correspondent Andrey Kolesnikov said.

Putin's open advertising of Russian air defense systems did not go unnoticed either by the reporter, who wrote that Putin would be remembered for his story how to help Saudi Arabia after the drone attack on the country's oil facilities.

Both official and opposition Russian press described the meeting as a "Summit of Peace", in line with official Rossiyskaya gazeta, which stressed the efforts of the three presidents to promote reconciliation in Syria, while opposition Nezavisimaya gazeta asserted: "Ideas of the Astana format are being developed in Ankara".

On Monday, Turkey hosted the fifth summit of presidents in capital Ankara between Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, Vladimir Putin of Russia and Hasan Rouhani of Iran.

The summit was held in hopes of coordinating further joint efforts on reaching a long-term settlement in Syria, including measures on finally eliminating the terrorist threat in Idlib and the northwest of Syria, promoting the political process, primarily in the context of forming and launching the constitutional committee, and resolving humanitarian issues.