Western press reports that Putin will not visit Turkey. The visit was scheduled for October 14-15. Referring to the office of the Turkish prime minister, the agency Bloomberg reported that the visit has been postponed to December "because of the tight schedule of Putin".
A senior Turkish diplomat told Turkish Hurriyet Daily News, that the reasons for the change of terms were - "purely bureaucratic". However, he clearly tried to convince journalists that the disagreements between the two countries over the Syrian crisis have allegedly nothing to do with it.
However, Russian commentators believe that the answers to the change are due to Syria. A source of the newspaper Vedomosti believes that the visit of Putin to the territory of "one of the parties of the conflict" could be "misinterpreted by both Turkey and Syria".
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in connection with the shellings, that it does not mean a declaration of war on Syria, but in strong language urged Assad to resign.
Russian experts believe that the talks between Putin and Erdogan on Syria would come up tough and the Kremlin leader would not get a positive result from it.
A senior Turkish diplomat confirmed to the Hrriyet Daily News, that the Syrian crisis was on the agenda, among other important topics. But the main attention was planned to be paid to cooperation in gas and energy sectors, he said.
Turkish diplomat said that Putin and Erdogan agreed to postpone the visit by talking on the phone on the 9th of October.
It is to be recalled that a day after Putin refused to fly to Turkey, Russia and Turkey immediately walked into diplomatic friction. Turkish Air Force intercepted a Syrian Airlines passenger plane flying from Moscow to Damascus, and forced it to land in Ankara.
The aircraft was under thorough search and investigation for five hours. During the search of the aircraft, which was carrying 37 people, including 17 Russian citizens, the military cargo was found.
Customs and counter-terrorism services of Turkey discovered more than a dozen sealed containers, which contained military communications, electronic intelligence and details of arms.
A total delay of Airbus A-320 of Syrian Airlines was of approx. nine hours. Eventually the plane with passengers continued the flight to Damascus.
The Russian embassy demanded from the Turkish Foreign Ministry an explanation for the interception - the first in all 19 months of the conflict, with Syria uprising against the rule of the Alawite Assad regime.
On Thursday morning, the Russian Foreign Ministry contacted Turkey with the same questions.
In turn, the Turkish foreign minister has assured that the incident "at this stage will not affect the Turkish-Russian relations".
Meanwhile, Bashar al-Assad an an interview with the Turkish newspaper Aydinlik stated the following:
"We have no problem with the Turkish people and the military. Syria will not be hostile to Turkey, has always treated it as a brother country. The only problem we have is the one with Turkish government because of whose position we have problems on Syrian-Turkish border".
Department of Monitoring
Kavkaz Center
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