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Turkey says Russia ready to improve rights of Crimean Tatars

02 December 2014 00:04 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Russian President Putin in visit to Turkey as he and Turkish President Erdogan hold joint press conference Monday on bilateral relations and crises in Ukraine and Syria, APA reports quoting Anadolu Agency

Russia says it is ready to grant the ethnic and cultural rights of Crimean Tatar people, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday.

"We found [Russia’s] approach positive on the situation of Crimean Tatars. They say they are ready to provide Crimean Tatars with the rights which they have not been able to obtain thus far," Erdogan said in a joint press conference with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

Erdogan said Moscow has already declared Crimean Tatars' language an official language, and has expressed commitment to address their residence woes.

Russia took over Crimea in March after a controversial referendum, which drew the ire of international observers because Russian soldiers occupied the region during the voting.

Leaders of Crimean Tatars, a Turkic ethnic group, had also opposed the peninsula's referendum to declare independence from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation.

According to Turkey’s Foreign Ministry, there are 280,000 Crimean Tatars in the autonomous Republic of Crimea, which constitutes close to 13 percent of the total population.

More than 4,000 people have been killed and more than 9,000 wounded in the conflict between the Ukrainian government and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine since mid-April, according to the U.N.Turkey is among the countries against Russia’s annexation of Crimea and defends the territorial integrity of Ukraine, but did not join the Western-led economic sanctions on Russia.

Improving economic ties was another major aspect of the meeting between the two leaders. Erdogan said that the two countries aimed to raise the current $33 billion trade volume to $100 billion by 2023. The Turkish president also touched upon the trade deficit between Russia and Turkey. "Some $25 billion of the current trade is composed of Russian exports to Turkey, while Turkish exports to Russia are some $7 billion. To reduce this gap, we have decided to increase our relations in many fields including energy, tourism, construction and investment," Erdogan said.

Speaking on Syria crisis, Erdogan also reiterated that the Bashar al-Assad’s regime should be ousted. "The question is: If Assad leaves, who will then be his replacement? I say, the national will in Syria will replace Assad. If the national will in Syria replaces Assad, then there is no problem. However, if a terrorist group like ISIL replaces him, then we have to build a platform against it."

Turkey and Russia hugely differ on other international issues despite their flourishing trade ties.

Russia has been the staunchest ally of the Syrian regime during the four-year civil war in the country. Russia has its only extraterritorial naval base in Syria’s Tartus city.

Turkey, on the other hand, has repeatedly said the removal of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant terrorist group from Syria would be effective only if the Assad regime is also removed.