Moscow and Ankara Will Cooperate to End Bloodshed in Syria

Russian President Vladimir Putin together with his Turkish colleague Recep Tayyip Erdogan held a meeting Monday in Istanbul at which special attention was paid to the situation in Syria. Both leaders called for the urgent end of violence in the region.

The leaders have agreed to intensify the military and intelligence contacts and develop further military-technical cooperation.

"Both Russia and Turkey stand for the earliest cessation of bloodshed in Syria. In Russia we think that the switch to a political settlement must happen as soon as possible. We suppose that everybody, who wants peace, should support this proposal," Putin said.

Putin and Erdogan expressed their willingness to cooperate in delivery of humanitarian aid to Aleppo.

"We thoroughly discussed the Syrian issue. We talked about the [Turkish] Euphrates Shield operation and evaluated ways we can cooperate in this direction. We specifically talked about what strategy we may choose in order to help, from a humanitarian point of view, the inhabitants who are in a dire situation, especially in Aleppo," Erdogan said.

"The issue is ensuring security for the deliveries of this cargo," the Russian President added.

Some other topics that were covered during the talks include special cooperation of Russia and Turkey in the humanitarian sphere. The Turkish government proposed holding the years of culture and tourism of Russia in Turkey and reciprocally a year of Turkey in Russia.

One of the large-scale projects is the implementation of a large international energy hub in Turkey, as one of the ways of normalizing the relations. The project just moved one step closer with signing of the agreement by the two leaders regarding the Turkish Stream pipeline.