Moscow, Ankara to resume Syria talks: Russian FM

Sergei Lavrov made the announcement on Wednesday, following a meeting with his French counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault in France.
 
"We until recently had very close contacts on Syrian settlement with Turkey, and then they were interrupted for clear reasons," he said.
 
Moscow-Ankara relations became strained last November after Turkey shot down a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 aircraft with two pilots aboard, claiming the fighter jet had repeatedly violated Turkish airspace.
 
Ankara argued that the Russian plane strayed into its airspace and ignored repeated warnings. Russia, however, insisted the aircraft did not cross the border and accused Ankara of "planned provocation."
 
Moscow said the plane was brought down in Syrian airspace, where Russia has been conducting combat sorties against Takfiri terrorists since late September 2015 upon a request by the Damascus government.
 
    "Now that the Turkish president sent apologies to the Russian president, when they discussed possibilities of normalization of our relations by phone today, it seems to me that we with Turkish partners will resume interaction on search for ways to settle the Syrian crisis,” the Tass news agency quoted Lavrov as saying.
 
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his government to start the process of normalizing trade ties with Turkey.
 
"I ask that the Russian government begins the process of normalizing general trade and economic ties with Turkey," said Putin following a telephone conversation with his Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier on Wednesday.
 
Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimates that over 400,000 people have been killed in the conflict. The UN has stopped its official casualty count in Syria, citing its inability to verify the figures it receives from various sources.