Kazakh President Helped Russia, Turkey Restore Relations - Foreign Ministry

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev used his relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to help mend ties between Moscow and Ankara, Kazakh Foreign Minister Erlan Idrissov said Wednesday.

ASTANA (Sputnik) — Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported that Nazarbayev was among those who helped brokering the restoration of ties between Russia and Turkey, as they were damaged following the downing of a Russian Su-24 jet in November 2015 over Syria by Turkey.

"Our leader, considering close ties with both Russia and Turkey, and also good relations with the leaders of Russia and Turkey, obviously used them to contribute in some way to the improvement of relations between Russia and Turkey following the jet incident," Idrissov told journalists.

On Tuesday, Putin met with Erdogan in St. Petersburg for the first talks to reset bilateral relations after the Su-24 incident.

The ties between the two countries started warming up again after the Turkish president wrote a letter to Putin in which he apologized for the incident in November and offered his condolences to the family of the slain Russian pilot in June.