The spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said today it will take time to mend ties with Turkey after the November downing of a Russian military jet.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a letter of formal apology to Putin yesterday, seven months after Turkey shot down the Russian jet on a mission in Syria, triggering a slew of Russian sanctions that have dealt a severe blow to the Turkish economy.
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov today called the apology "a very important" step but added that the ties between the two countries would not go back to where they were overnight.
"Together we will have to take more than one step to meet each other," Peskov said. "One shouldn't think that everything will be mended overnight. We will keep up our work in that direction."
Putin will talk to Erdogan by telephone tomorrow, which will be their first one-to-one chat since the jet was shot down, Peskov said.
Putin denounced the downing of the Russian warplane at the Syrian border on Nov 24 as a "treacherous stab in the back." Russia rejected the Turkish claim that the plane had violated its airspace, and responded by deploying long-range air defence missiles to its base in Syria, warning that they would destroy any target posing a threat to Russian aircraft.
The plane's downing came amid a rift between Moscow and Ankara over Syria, where they backed the opposing sides in the conflict.
Moscow moved swiftly to ban the sales of package tours to Turkey, which had depended heavily on the Russian tourist flow; banned most of Turkey's food exports; and introduced restrictions against Turkish construction companies, which had won a sizable niche of the Russian market.
In contrast to Peskov Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said today that the ties are already getting better: "We can say that the ice has melted and that the process of normalisation has started."
Along with the formal apology Moscow said it expected Ankara to pay compensation to the family of the killed pilot. Asked about the possible compensation, Yildirim said in comments carried by the Anadolu news agency today that "there is no such thing. We only expressed our regrets, we shared their grief." He added that Turkey will go ahead with the prosecution of the men responsible for the pilot's death.
