Russian President Vladimir Putin received Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Sochi on the Black Sea on Friday afternoon in a magnificent resort hotel called "Rus" and not, as usual, in his residence.

Rainer Herman

Editor in Politics.

  • Follow I follow

Frederick Smith

Political correspondent for Russia and the CIS in Moscow.

  • Follow I follow

At the beginning, the two presidents appeared in front of the press.

On Thursday, Putin's spokesman initially justified the fact that the two were not scheduled to make a final appearance by saying that "the Turkish side" would have to travel back after the meeting.

On Friday, Dmitry Peskov referred to Putin's deadline commitments.

On the Russian side, it should fall to Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Nowak to provide information about the encounter.

Nowak is not only co-chair of a Russian-Turkish government commission on economic cooperation, but is also responsible for energy in Moscow.

The energy issue has piquant sides for Erdogan

His role was appropriate in that, in addition to conflicts and wars in which Putin and Erdogan discuss or even settle fundamental disagreements between men (Ukraine, Syria, Nagornyi Karabakh), Peskov says that Sochi should be about the expansion of "strategic projects in the energy sector".

Initially, Putin praised the smooth operation of the Turkstream gas pipeline and called on “European partners” to thank Turkey “for the transit of our gas to the European market”.

But the energy issue also has piquant sides for Erdogan: the developments in the construction of Turkey's first nuclear power plant in Akkuyu.

Turkey awarded the contract worth 20 billion dollars in 2010 to a consortium led by the export subsidiary of the Russian state nuclear company Rosatom.

Construction work began in 2018, but at the end of July Rosatom unilaterally terminated the contract with the Turkish consortium partners and replaced them with three Russian construction companies.

Ictas, one of the three Turkish companies affected, described the procedure as illegal and announced that it would take legal action against it.

So far it is unclear whether the Turkish leadership was informed in advance about the Russian actions or whether Russia is trying to put Turkey under pressure.

The nuclear power plant is to become the property of Russia by 2040;

until then, Turkey would be obliged to purchase a contractually agreed amount of electricity at a high, fixed price.

Commissioning was originally planned for this year.

Once connected to the grid, the nuclear power plant should cover ten percent of Turkey's electricity needs.

Turkey has thus committed itself to a deadline in which the expansion of renewable energies should make nuclear power plants superfluous.

The Turkish opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu criticized the Akkuyu electricity as "the most expensive energy" and above all complained that Turkey, should the status quo remain, would no longer have a share in the nuclear power plant.

At the beginning of the meeting on Friday, Erdogan only demanded that Akkuyu be completed without delay.

Three more grain ships have left Odessa

Putin and Erdogan last met on July 19 in the Iranian capital Tehran.

Three days later, the agreement on the export of Ukrainian grain was signed in Istanbul, involving Moscow, Kiev, Ankara and the United Nations.

The next day Russia fired cruise missiles at the port of Odessa and on July 31 killed the Ukrainian grain wholesaler Oleksiy Vadaturskyi and his wife with a rocket attack on their house in the city of Mykolaiv.

But the deal seems to be working.

On August 1, a Sierra Leonean-flagged ship carrying 27,000 tons of corn left Odessa for Lebanon.

On Friday it was reported that another three ships had departed from Chornomorsk, a port city west of Odessa, with a total of 58,000 tons of corn on board, bound for ports in Turkey, Britain and Ireland.

The ships were to be inspected in Istanbul by representatives of a Joint Coordination Center.

Putin thanked his guest for his role in the grain issue and in making the export of Russian food and fertilizers "smooth" in a "package solution".

Apparently, the easing of EU sanctions is meant.

Reports in Turkey that the two presidents would talk about an alleged Russian desire to deliver Turkish drones to Russia have not been confirmed.

Turkey has sold Bayraktar combat drones to Ukraine, much to the chagrin of Russia at the time.