ANKARA (Sputnik) — Moscow and Ankara are in talks on the use of national currencies in bilateral trade, Turkish Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci said Wednesday.
"Technical negotiations with the participation of the central banks of both countries on the possibility of using the ruble and the lira in mutual trade are currently underway," Zeybekci said, as quoted by the Anadolu news agency.
Moscow-Ankara relations are warming since Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan paid a reconciliatory visit to St. Petersburg on August 9 to restart bilateral ties after the incident with the downing of Russia’s Su-24 in November 2015 by Turkey over Syria.
The proposal regarding trade in national currencies was put forward by Erdogan during his visit to St. Petersburg where he said he believed that the use of national currencies instead of US dollars would be mutually beneficial. He added that Turkey was interested in increasing bilateral trade turnover to $100 billion.
