ANKARA: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday said during a telephone call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin that he wants to expand trade between Ankara and Moscow.
“President Erdogan declared that he aimed to increase the cooperation between Turkey and Russia in a number of areas, notably expanding the volume of trade,” the Turkish presidency said in a statement as quoted by AFP.
In recent years, Russia and Turkey have expanded cooperation on trade, tourism and energy.
When energy prices soared with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Turkey was vulnerable as an importer of nearly all its energy needs.
Russia, Turkey’s largest gas supplier, threw Ankara a lifeline by allowing it to defer payment of gas imports until 2024.
The deal helped Turkish authorities maintain enough reserves.
Bilateral trade has reached record levels, with Turkish exports to Russia up 17% to $11 billion in 2023, according to the Turkish Statistics Institute data as cited by Reuters.
Turkey has kept close ties with both Kyiv and Moscow, hosted talks between them in 2022 and positioned itself as a natural facilitator of future peace talks.
Turkey’s diplomacy and control of the straits connecting the Black Sea to world markets put it at the centre of an agreement between Russia, Ukraine and the United Nations on safe passage of Ukrainian agriculture exports and enhanced Russian exports.
The UN heralded Erdogan’s role in co-brokering the 2022 Black Sea Grain Initiative, which it said helped relieve world hunger by freeing up exports of two top global producers.
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Putin quit the deal in July 2023, despite pleas by Turkey to both sides, citing obstacles to Russian food and fertiliser exports and questions about the destinations of Ukrainian grain.
In recent months, Turkey has also voiced a desire to join the BRICS group, which originally consisted of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and has expanded to include Ethiopia, Iran, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.
Ankara sees BRICS as an opportunity for more economic cooperation with member states.
