Russia, Turkey remain hopeful to restart flights

MOSCOW

Russia and Turkey stressed the importance of resuming full-scale air traffic between the two countries, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.

At a meeting in Moscow on Tuesday at the level of the deputy foreign ministers, the representatives of the two countries agreed to lift restrictions with the improvement of the coronavirus situation, the ministry said in a statement on its official website.

"The participants of the consultations agreed on the importance of maintaining the high dynamics of the Russian-Turkish political dialogue, resuming close working contacts between the concerned departments as the sanitary and epidemiological situation normalizes, and full-scale air traffic between Russia and Turkey," it said.

The Turkish side was represented by Deputy Foreign Minister Sedat Onal, while the Russian side by his counterparts Sergey Vershinin, Andrey Rudenko, and Alexander Vershinin, it added.

The diplomats also examined a set of issues of international assistance in resolving the Syrian, Nagorno-Karabakh, Palestinian-Israeli, and other regional crises, the statement also noted.

"The Russian side emphasized the need for a balanced approach to the situation in the southeast of Ukraine, the inadmissibility of supporting Kiev's militaristic aspirations and various anti-Russian initiatives," it said.

The participants of the meeting agreed to continue discussing the entire range of bilateral relations, particularly stressing the need for further joint efforts in fighting the coronavirus pandemic, including the establishment of joint production of the Russian vaccine Sputnik V in Turkey.