Turkish committee to visit Moscow for tourism talks

ANKARA (AA) – Top Turkish bureaucrats are set to visit the Russian capital of Moscow on Thursday to revive tourism between the two countries, Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a written statement on Wednesday.

Russia invited the Turkish committee to discuss ways to cooperate on tourism and normalize relations between the two countries after months of strained ties following the downing of a Russian war plane that violated Turkish airspace in November last year.

Officials from the Turkish foreign ministry, interior ministry, culture and tourism ministry, and transport ministry will meet their Russian counterparts in Moscow.

The two sides will discuss measures to ensure security for tourists, the statement said. Preparations to restart the charter flights between the two countries will be on the agenda.

On June 30, Russia lifted a ban on tourist flights to Turkey following a telephone conversation between President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Turkish and Russian foreign ministers later met in the Russian city of Sochi on July 1 in an effort to boost the process of normalizing relations.

Putin and Erdogan are set to meet in the upcoming period, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus announced as he attended a TV program on Wednesday.

"Committees will be going and coming," Kurtulmus said. "We might be discussing over culture today, and talking about financial and commercial ties tomorrow [...]"

Kurtulmus said the news about a Turkish committee heading to Russia is a sign of the normalization process.