The spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday it will take time to mend ties with Turkey after the November downing of a Russian military jet.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a letter of formal apology to Putin on Monday, seven months after Turkey shot down the Russian jet on a mission in Syria, triggering a slew of Russian sanctions that have dealt a severe blow to the Turkish economy.
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday called the apology “a very important” step but added that the ties between the two countries would not go back to where they were overnight. “Together we will have to take more than one step to meet each other,” Peskov said. “One shouldn’t think that everything will be mended overnight. We will keep up our work in that direction.”
Putin will talk to Erdogan by telephone on Wednesday, which will be their first one-to-one chat since the jet was shot down, Peskov said.
Putin denounced the downing of the Russian warplane at the Syrian border on Nov 24 as a “treacherous stab in the back.” Russia rejected the Turkish claim that the plane had violated its airspace, and responded by deploying
long-range air defence missiles to its base in Syria, warning that they would destroy any
target posing a threat to Russian aircraft.
The plane’s downing came amid a rift between Moscow and Ankara over Syria, where they backed the opposing sides in the conflict.