Moscow decides to lift all restrictions on Turkey

Moscow has announced it would lift all restrictions on Turkey imposed in the aftermath of the shooting of a Russian jet that violated Turkish airspace last November. A decree signed by Vladimir Putin orders the Russian Cabinet to hold economic talks with Turkey and revise other restrictions accordingly.

In an interview with the French daily Le Monde on 04 July, Turkish foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said that “Russia told us that they are going to lift all restrictions. We saw the first results in tourism. Russians have started to come back; they can come here freely without a visa,”

Russia had banned the sales of package tours and halted charter flights to Turkey, dealing a heavy blow to the country’s vital tourism industry. Moscow also banned most food imports from Turkey and introduced other restrictions.

Russia and Turkey restored ties after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Vladimir Putinspoke over the phone and Erdogan sent an apology letter for the downing of the plane to Putin on Monday, the day before suicide bombers attacked the main airport in Istanbul. Putin called Erdogan on Wednesday to express his condolences for the airport attack and announced he was lifting the restrictions on tourism to Turkey.

On 01 July, Çavuşoğlu also met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

According to the Turkish daily Hürriyet, in the first four months of the year, Turkey’s exports to Russia dropped to $484.6 million, a 61.5 percent decrease compared to the same period of 2015.

Nevertheless, Russia has not toned down all criticism of Turkey. The Kremlin said on Wednesday it believed that the recent attack on Istanbul airport could be a result of Turkish and European security services ignoring Moscow’s signals about suspected “terrorists” hiding in Turkey and Europe.

“Over the past many years, the Russian side … has informed our Turkish and European colleagues that persons suspected of being linked to terrorism … find shelter both in Turkey and in a number of other European countries,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov told a conference call with journalists.

“In most cases such signals from the Russian side have not been given proper attention or any reaction by our colleagues. To our regret, these (Istanbul attacks) can be a consequence of such disregard.”

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