STRELNA (St. Petersburg) (Sputnik) — After restoring bilateral ties, Moscow and Ankara should go even further, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday.
"We should not only regain the earlier level, but go even further, your [Russian business] active participation will be needed for sure to make it possible," Putin said at the meeting with business community of Russia and Turkey.
"Now we should gradually regain the pre-crisis level. As the Russian saying goes, breaking is not making, that means that to break something is an easy thing, it is always harder to build something, but both the Russian and the Turkish sides are ready to engage in building," Putin added.
Earlier in the day, Putin met with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who arrived in St. Petersburg for first talks to reset bilateral relations after the November 2015 downing of a Russian aircraft by Turkey.
