Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan flies into Russia on Tuesday for his first meeting with counterpart Vladimir Putin since the two began healing a bitter rift over Turkey shooting down a Russian fighter jet.
Erdogan's visit to Putin's hometown of Saint Petersburg on Tuesday is also his first foreign trip since a failed coup attempt last month that sparked a purge of alleged coup supporters in the military, judiciary, civil service and education sector, and cast a shadow over Turkey'srelations with the West.
"This visit seems to me a new milestone in bilateral relations, beginning with a clean slate, and I personally, with all my heart and on behalf of the Turkish nation salute President Putin and all Russians," Erdogan said in an interview with Russian state media before the visit.
The shooting down of the Russian jet by a Turkish F-16 over the Syrian border last November saw a furious Putin slap economic sanctions on Turkey and launch a blistering war of words with Erdogan that seemed to irrevocably damage burgeoning ties.
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