ISTANBUL: Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is likely to meet Russian leader Vladimir Putin on the margins of a regional summit in the Kazakh capital Astana this week, a Turkish official told AFP.
The official initially said the meeting would be on Wednesday, but later said it appeared Erdogan was likely to meet Putin on Thursday, according to the latest program.
Erdogan is scheduled to fly to Astana on Wednesday for talks with Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, said the Turkish official.
Turkey, which has stayed neutral throughout the conflict in Ukraine, has good relations with its two Black Sea neighbors — Russia and Ukraine.
Erdogan has not yet commented on mass Russian strikes across Ukraine on Monday, which Ukrainian emergency services said killed at least 19 people and wounded more than 100.
But Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu held a telephone call with Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba after the attacks, a Turkish diplomatic source said, without elaborating further.
Erdogan met Putin on the sidelines of a regional summit in Uzbekistan last month.
The Turkish leader still hopes to bring Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky together for truce talks that neither side particularly wants but which Turkish officials insist are essential and realistic.
NATO member Turkey has refrained from joining Western sanctions against Russia.
Erdogan is keen to boost trade with Moscow as he tries to stabilize the battered Turkish economy in the run up to elections next June.
Last month Ankara bowed to pressure from the United States and confirmed the last three Turkish banks still processing Russian card payments were pulling the plug.
The decision followed weeks of increasingly blunt warnings from Washington for Turkey to either limit economic ties with Russia or face the threat of sanctions itself.
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Erdogan to meet Putin in Astana: Turkish official
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Erdogan to meet Putin in Astana: Turkish official
- Erdogan met Putin on the sidelines of a regional summit in Uzbekistan last month
- The Turkish leader still hopes to bring Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky together for truce talks
Turkiye holds military funeral for Libyan officers killed in plane crash
ANKARA: Turkiye held a military funeral ceremony Sunday morning for five Libyan officers, including western Libya’s military chief, who died in a plane crash earlier this week.
The private jet with Gen. Muhammad Ali Ahmad Al-Haddad, four other military officers and three crew members crashed on Tuesday after taking off from Ankara, Turkiye’s capital, killing everyone on board. Libyan officials said the cause of the crash was a technical malfunction on the plane.
Al-Hadad was the top military commander in western Libya and played a crucial role in the ongoing, UN-brokered efforts to unify Libya’s military.
The high-level Libyan delegation was on its way back to Tripoli, Libya’s capital, after holding defense talks in Ankara aimed at boosting military cooperation between the two countries.
Sunday’s ceremony was held at 8:00 a.m. local time at the Murted Airfield base, near Ankara, and attended by the Turkish military chief and the defense minister. The five caskets wrapped in their national flag were then loaded onto a plane to be returned to Libya.
The bodies recovered from the crash site were kept at the Ankara Forensic Medicine Institute for identification. Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc told reporters their DNA was compared to family members who joined a 22-person delegation that arrived from Libya after the crash.
Tunc also said Germany was asked to help examine the jet’s black boxes as an impartial third party
Libya plunged into chaos after the country’s 2011 uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Muammar Qaddafi. The country split, with rival administrations in the east and west, backed by an array of rogue militias and different foreign governments.
Turkiye has been the main backer of Libya’s government in the west, but has recently taken steps to improve ties with the eastern-based government as well.
The private jet with Gen. Muhammad Ali Ahmad Al-Haddad, four other military officers and three crew members crashed on Tuesday after taking off from Ankara, Turkiye’s capital, killing everyone on board. Libyan officials said the cause of the crash was a technical malfunction on the plane.
Al-Hadad was the top military commander in western Libya and played a crucial role in the ongoing, UN-brokered efforts to unify Libya’s military.
The high-level Libyan delegation was on its way back to Tripoli, Libya’s capital, after holding defense talks in Ankara aimed at boosting military cooperation between the two countries.
Sunday’s ceremony was held at 8:00 a.m. local time at the Murted Airfield base, near Ankara, and attended by the Turkish military chief and the defense minister. The five caskets wrapped in their national flag were then loaded onto a plane to be returned to Libya.
The bodies recovered from the crash site were kept at the Ankara Forensic Medicine Institute for identification. Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc told reporters their DNA was compared to family members who joined a 22-person delegation that arrived from Libya after the crash.
Tunc also said Germany was asked to help examine the jet’s black boxes as an impartial third party
Libya plunged into chaos after the country’s 2011 uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Muammar Qaddafi. The country split, with rival administrations in the east and west, backed by an array of rogue militias and different foreign governments.
Turkiye has been the main backer of Libya’s government in the west, but has recently taken steps to improve ties with the eastern-based government as well.
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