Turkey will cooperate with Iran, Russia for Syrian security, stability: Erdogan

In a news conference with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Ankara late Tuesday, he added, “We will discuss Syria and trend of implementation of Astana Accord in a trilateral meeting tomorrow.”

The agreement reached in Astana contributed a lot to preventing victimization of further civilians, he said.

“We should not throw future of Syria in the hands of Daesh and other terrorist groups,” he stressed.

Referring to a 32 percent increase in Turkey-Russia trade over the past year, he put the value of their commercial exchanges at over $ 22 billion.

Last year, 4.7 million Russian tourists visited Turkey, standing first in terms of the number of foreign tourists visiting the country, he said, noting that the figure is projected to hit six million in the current year.

“Our ties with Russia have reached a level we desired,” Erdoghan said.

Putin, for his part, said that his county will hand over missile system S400 to Turkey soon.

The seventh round of meeting of Turkey-Russia High Level Cooperation Council (HLCC) co-chaired by Erdogan and Putin was held today.

Earlier on Tuesday, the leaders of Russia and Turkey launched the start of construction of Turkey’s first nuclear power plant.

Putin is currently in Ankara to attend the trilateral meeting between Iran, Russia and Turkey slated to discuss Syrian situation.
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