Turkey confirms: Putin is coming

No dates have been officially announced but Turkish media speculate that the visit will take place on February 12.

– This visit gives us opportunities to discuss more issues, says Fidan to the state television channel TRT Haber.

Putin’s foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said last week that Ukraine-related issues could “probably” be on the agenda if Putin meets Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The Turkish president said in December that a meeting with Vladimir Putin would take place “soon”, and then spoke mainly about the grain agreement that Turkey has been involved in negotiating between Russia and Ukraine.

Putin and Erdogan met in Russian Sochi at the beginning of September last year. However, a visit to Turkish soil would constitute the first visit to a NATO country since Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022.

Vladimir Putin is also the subject of an international arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court in The Hague (ICC), but Turkey is not part of the ICC cooperation and is therefore not bound to arrest the Russian president if and when he arrives there.

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