Russia marks 'significant success' in ties with Turkey

By Elena Teslova

MOSCOW (AA) - Russia's president marked "a significant success" in Turkish-Russian relations in his New Year greetings to his Turkish counterpart on Monday.

According to the Kremlin website, Recep Tayyip Erdogan was the most often contacted counterpart for Vladimir Putin in 2019.

In his address published on the Kremlin website, Putin noted that Turkey and Russia "had managed to achieve significant success in the implementation of mutually beneficial strategic projects, including in energy and military and technical cooperation."

He said that in 2019 the two countries outlined "new prospective areas for the development of Russian-Turkish trade and economic ties."

Putin added: "Moscow and Ankara closely cooperated in fighting terrorism in Syria and together helped launch the political settlement process in the country."

According to the statement, "next year would mark the 100th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Russia and Turkey and expressed confidence that this significant date would be marked by new achievements in the development of bilateral cooperation."

This year, Erdogan and Putin met seven times in bilateral and three times in multilateral format, and held 12 phone talks.

In 2019, Turkey and Russia completed two major projects, the contract on the S-400 air defense system delivery and TurkStream natural gas pipeline construction.