Erdoğan and Putin agree to deepen strategic partnership

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin discussed a mutual desire for deeper strategic partnership between Russia and Turkey in a phone call on Saturday.

The heads of state discussed agreements on removing economic restrictions, as well as joint projects such as Turkstream and Akkuyu.

Turkstream is a planned natural gas pipeline to compress Russian gas under Turkish waters in the Black Sea toward Europe.

The Akkuyu project is a nuclear power plant being built in collaboration with Russia in southern Turkey that is expected to be completed in 2023.