Russia, Turkey discuss visa-free regime for Turkey

/By Azernews/

By Gunay Hasanova

Russia and Turkey agreed to hold consultations on the abolition of visa regime with Turkey at the level of Foreign Ministries and the law enforcement agencies, RIA News reported.

"We agreed on consultations between the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and competent authorities who deal with law enforcement and special services. We need to provide the necessary assurance regarding the movement of individuals involved in extremist and terrorist activities to Russia. Once the relevant services achieve mutual agreement and cooperation, the visa regime can be abolished," Arkady Dvorkovich said.

In addition, the Russian Federation and Turkey discussed the implementation of the project of Akkuyu NPP.

By force of the unconstructive position of the EU, Russia decided in December 2014 to reject the South Stream, which was supposed to pass through Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, in favor of a new gas pipeline to Turkey ("Turkish Stream"). However, this project was frozen on the background of the cooling in political relations between Moscow and Ankara.

Russia and Turkey signed an intergovernmental agreement in the sphere of construction and operation of the Akkuyu nuclear plant in Mersin on the south of Turkey in 2010. Cost of the project was reported to be approximately $ 20 billion.

Earlier, it was reported that the company that will construct the Akkuyu nuclear plant plans to receive the license for the electricity generation in the future station in 2016.

The license for the construction of nuclear power plants is expected to be received in 2018. It is also planned to lunch the construction in 2018.

Meanwhile, the Energy Ministries of the Russian Federation and Turkey will establish a working group on the implementation of the "Turkish Stream", as Turkish Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekchi confirmed interest in the project at a meeting with his Russian counterpart Alexander Novak.

The crisis in relations between the two countries began after the incident with the downed Russian plane. After the incident, the Russian president signed a decree on measures to ensure national security and launch special economic measures against Turkey.

On June 29 the presidents of Russia and Turkey held a telephone conversation to normalize their cracked relations.

Previously President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a letter to his Russian counterpart, where he expressed condolences to the family of the deceased pilot of SU-24 and regret over the incident with the Russian aircraft.