Russian tourists to Turkey hit record high: envoy

By Tolga Akbaba, Dmitri Chirciu, Tayfur Bayraklı

ANKARA (AA) - The number of Russian tourists visiting Turkey has hit a record high, the Russian envoy said Thursday.

Aleksey Yerhov said: "Some 4.7 million Russian tourists visited Turkey last year and we expect the figure to reach 5.5 million this year."

He was speaking at a forum on Turkey-Russia relations was held at the Yildirim Beyazit University in the Turkish capital Ankara.

Yerhov said Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin had met six time this year, in a sign of deepening of ties between the countries.

Also bilateral trade had increased, he said.

Noting the strategic importance of TurkStream, a gas pipeline from Russia to Turkey, and Akkuyu nuclear power plant projects, built by Russia in Turkey, he said the two countries will also gain from talks on Syria.

Presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin and several Russian and Turkish bureaucrats and academics attended the event.