"On August 9, I'm to meet the Russian President in St. Petersburg, where I would like to discuss economic cooperation and the crisis that followed the Russian aircraft [downing], about which Turkey has shown sensitivity," Erdogan said at an economic forum in Ankara.
The two countries ended seven months of tension in late June when Erdogan wrote a letter to Putin in which he apologized for the downing of the jet and extended his condolences to the family of the pilot killed in the incident.
By apologizing for the incident, Ankara fulfilled Moscow’s condition for restoring the long-term partnership between the two countries. Erdogan also said in the letter that a legal case had been opened against the Turkish citizen suspected of involvement in the death of the downed plane’s pilot, which was another precondition for the normalization of relations.
Putin subsequently lifted the Russian ban on charter flights to Turkey and instructed the government to negotiate a revival of trade with Ankara.
