ANKARA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th December, 2020) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin is "an honest man" who keeps his word, stressing that Russia and Turkey have reached an exceptional level of relations.
On December 17, Putin said that Erdogan is a man who keeps his word, though they sometimes have diverging views on certain issues.
"Putin's remarks apply to himself as well. He has been exactly the same since I met him. He is an honest man, keeps his word. And the development of our relations demonstrates that there is almost no other state, with which we have such strong ties, it is very exceptional. I hope that the level of our relations will remain in the future as well. If we look at our trade balance, we will see that we are decisively moving toward our objectives," Erdogan said at a press conference.
Russia and Turkey have close relations and actively cooperate in various fields. According to the Russian Federal Customs Service, trade between Russia and Turkey amounted to $26 billion in 2019, showing a 1.9 percent increase on a year-on-year basis. On November 24, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that trade between Russia and Turkey has amounted to $14 billion over the first nine months of 2020, while the number of Russian tourists that visited Turkey in the same period had surpassed 1.9 million people.
