Azernews.Az

By Gunay Hasanova

Turkey, in a bid to rebuild its damaged ties with Russia and grow the relations even closer, seeks to boost the bilateral contacts in the tourism and business sphere.

Ankara hopes that Moscow will soon grant Turkish citizens visa-free entry, Turkish Customs and Trade Minister Bulent Tufenkci said on October 14, Sputnik reported.

"This issue is under consideration. I hope that we will soon be back to what we had before November 24, 2015," Tufenkci said.

Earlier, Turkey’s Minister of Economy Nihat Zeybekci said that Turkey is negotiating with the Russian Federation on a soon lifting of visa limitations.

"As you know, before the crisis [downing of Russian Su-24 by Turkish jet] citizens of our countries could travel without the requirement to obtain visas," he said.

"Visa-free relations favor both tourism and trade sectors, as well as, the countries themselves. Sure, we continue contacts to restore the visa-free regime”, Zeybekci added.

President of Turkish Travel Agencies Union Basharan Ulusoy earlier said that Turkey seeks to welcome more than 5 million tourists from Russia in 2017, adding that the abolition of visas for Turkish citizens would be a positive step to increase the tourist flow from Turkey to Russia.

"Tourism should be mutual, but to increase the number of tourists from Turkey to Russia, it is necessary, first of all, to abolish visas and then the number of Turkish tourists will increase in two or three times,” Ulusoy said.

Russia reinstated visa regime with Turkey after a Turkish fighter jet shot down a Russian frontline bomber near the Syrian border last November. The attack soured relations between Moscow and Ankara for months. They started improving after the Turkish president apologized in a letter in late June.

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Gunay Hasanova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @gunhasanova

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