Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will make his first foreign trip after the unsuccessful military coup to St. Petersburg to meet his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on August 9. In the aftermath of the July 15 coup attempt, thousands of Turkish soldiers, police officers, judges, prosecutors, journalists, and academicians have been either arrested or suspended, while relations with Europe and the United States have deteriorated. Turning to Russia seems like the only option open for Erdoğan.
The Russian-Turkish fray began after a Russian Su-24 bomber was shot down by a Turkish jet on November 24, 2015, on the Turkish-Syrian border. The …read more
Source: The Jamestown Foundation