Ankara’s spotlight on Crimea events is defined by the numerous Tatar community on the peninsula and Black Sea interests
On March 25, RIAC hosted a roundtable on Russian-Turkish relations held in partnership with RAS Institute for Oriental Studies and Turkish Global Relations Forum.
The event was attended by RIAC President Igor Ivanov, RIAC Director General Andrey Kortunov, Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Meshkov, RIAC Member Ambassador Pyotr Stegny, Turkey’s former deputy foreign minister Ertugrul Apakan, Turkish Ambassador to Moscow Aidyn Sezgin, President of Global Relations Forum Memduh Karakullukçu, as well as other Russian and Turkish experts.
Ankara’s spotlight on Crimea events is defined by the numerous Tatar community on the peninsula and Black Sea interests
On March 25, RIAC hosted a roundtable on Russian-Turkish relations held in partnership with RAS Institute for Oriental Studies and Turkish Global Relations Forum.
The event was attended by RIAC President Igor Ivanov, RIAC Director General Andrey Kortunov, Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Meshkov (Statement), RIAC Member Ambassador Pyotr Stegny, Turkey’s former deputy foreign minister Ertugrul Apakan, Turkish Ambassador to Moscow Aidyn Sezgin, President of Global Relations Forum Memduh Karakullukçu, as well as other Russian and Turkish experts.
The participants focused on problems in Russian-Turkish relations and their solutions, including measures fit for the second track.
The debate inevitably covered the current situation, i.e. Ukraine. Ambassador Sezgin acknowledged that the status of Crimea is a sensitive issue for Ankara, since Turkey is home to five million Tatars. Mr. Apakan underlined that his country is interested in full-fledged cooperation in the Black Sea area and ready to participate in the Ukraine settlement.
Mr. Karakullukçu underlined the importance of the Russian-Turkish cooperation in solution of global problems, which requires defining common values and landmarks. Dr. Ivanov said that crises like that offer a complex test to determine the readiness of the countries to maintain the dialogue and advance mutually beneficial cooperation.
Roundtable on Russian-Turkish relations
Statement by Alexei Meshkov, Deputy Foreign Minister
Unofficial translation
Dear Igor Sergeevich,
Ladies and gentlemen, colleagues,
First, I would like to welcome our Turkish guests here in Moscow. I hope you will have a useful, interesting and pleasant stay in the Russian capital.
As I understand, today's meeting is a follow-up to the cooperation project involving academia of both our countries that was launched last year by the Russian International Affairs Council together with the Institute of Far Eastern Studies under the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Turkish Forum on International Relations. I am convinced that your work will assist in fostering effective cooperation of the academic circles that significantly contribute to the development of friendly relations between Russia and Turkey.
Our relations, without any exaggeration, are booming today. They have reached a qualitatively new level on numerous tracks ensuring advanced multi‑dimensional cooperation, and in certain fields, primarily in the energy sector, strategic partnership. This is largely due to the efficient work of the High Level Cooperation Council (HLCC), the time-tested bilateral mechanism under the chairmanship of the President of the Russian Federation and Prime Minister of the Turkish Republic. The fourth meeting of the Council was successfully held in November 2013 in St. Petersburg. The leaders of our two States summed up the results of another year of cooperation and set goals for the future. Most importantly, however, they reaffirmed mutual interest in further strengthening of bilateral ties and intention to enhance dialogue in order to secure and continue the positive trends that Russia-Turkish relations show at present.
As we know, the Joint Strategic Planning Group (JSPG) (in charge of issues relating to international cooperation) headed by the Foreign Ministers, the Mixed Intergovernmental Russian-Turkish Commission on Trade and Economic Cooperation responsible for the economic sector and the Public Forum (in charge of social and humanitarian ties) are functioning within the Council's framework. Therefore, our relations are based not only on a solid and constantly improving legal framework, but also on a well-structured bilateral dialogue mechanism which allows us to set up an optimal scheme for our cooperation in all fields and promptly address the emerging issues.
The third meeting of the Joint Strategic Planning Group chaired by Sergey Lavrov and Ahmet Davutoğlu was held in Istanbul in April 2013. They had an in-depth exchange of views on a broad range of current bilateral, regional and international issues. Our Ministers for Foreign Affairs discussed the situation in the Middle East, including Syria, in North Africa, continued the dialogue on a whole range of issues relating to Iran's nuclear programme, the situation in Transcaucasia, Central Asia and the Balkans. The results of the meeting have shown that Russia and Turkey have similar or largely overlapping approaches to many global and regional issues. It is Russia's turn to host the next JSPG meeting. We are planning to hold it in Moscow in the second half of the year.
The 13th session of the Russian-Turkish Intergovernmental Commission on Trade and Economic Cooperation will be convened this year as well (the 12th meeting of the Commission was held in Antalya in April 2013). As far as I know, it is also scheduled for the second half of this year. Commercial and economic ties are important components of bilateral relations. Russia occupies the fourth place among the trading partners of Turkey, which, in its turn, is the eighth biggest trading partner of Russia. In 2013 our mutual trade amounted to 32.7 billion USD. It was 4.5 percent less than in 2012. The decrease was caused by a number of objective factors. Nevertheless, our commercial ties need to be diversified. We should implement new large-scale cooperation projects, including those related to innovations. This is the only way to achieve the bilateral trade target of 100 billion USD set by our leaders.
The largest investment project of Russia in Turkey aimed at constructing a nuclear power plant costing about 20 billion USD at Akkuyu is well-known to everyone. It is successfully under way. The implementation of another strategic project aimed at building the South Stream gas pipeline, a part of the offshore section of which will run through the exclusive economic zone of Turkey in the Black Sea, goes as planned too.
Interregional cooperation is one of the fast developing areas of Russian‑Turkish bilateral relations. Traditionally, leading partners of Turkey include Moscow, Moscow Region, Saint Petersburg, Republic of Tatarstan and Republic of Bashkortostan, Krasnodar Territory and Stavropol Territory, Rostov Region, Smolensk Region, Ryazan Region, and Vladimir Region.
As you know, Sergey Naryshkin, Chairman of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, has recently made his first official visit to Turkey in 16 years. I hope that the visit will give an additional impetus to inter-parliamentary cooperation, including through specialized committees and friendship groups. During the visit, the opening ceremony of the Russian Center for Science and Culture in Ankara took place.
We are satisfied that Turkey has completed – as we were officially told by the Turkish side – all the internal procedures necessary for the entry into force of the Agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Republic of Turkey on the Establishment and Activities of Cultural Centers (signed in Istanbul on December 3, 2012).
The work of the Public Forum responsible for the humanitarian component of our relations is gaining momentum. The Forum held its first meeting in November 2013, and as far as I know, some of those present here also participated in it.
This is the general status of our current bilateral relations. I am sure that today's meeting will add, so to speak, academic thoroughness to our dialogue – not only to its humanitarian component – and will also enable us to give impetus to a practical interaction at the bilateral and international level.
In my statement, I made a deliberate emphasis on our bilateral relations implying that working further you will also engage in a meaningful dialogue on key issues of the world order through the prism of relevant international challenges. Of course, I am convinced that the situation in Ukraine will also be addressed.
