Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a landmark visit to Istanbul on Monday to discuss their differences over the crisis in Syria.
The visit follows a delay because of tensions between the two countries over the 20-month-old Syrian conflict and speculation that the Russian president might postpone his long-awaited trip due to a back injury.
But the visit, which marks Putin’s first trip outside Russia since he visited Tajikistan on October 5, has been confirmed by both Turkish and Russian officials.
Syria is expected to figure high on the agenda during Putin’s talks with Turkish leaders.
“The negotiations are to touch upon a series of urgent international and regional issues including reconciliation in the Middle East, the situation in the Gaza Strip, the crisis in Syria, as well as cooperation,” Putin’s foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said in a statement.
Turkey and Russia are at loggerheads over how to tackle the bloody crackdown in Syria, which has claimed more than 40,000 lives according to monitoring groups.
Those tensions came to a head in October when Turkey intercepted a Syrian plane en route from Moscow to Damascus on suspicion that it had military cargo, drawing an angry response from Russia.