The two countries may also cooperate on some other defense projects, added Erdogan.

Cahit Armagan Dilek, head of the Ankara-based 21st Century Turkey Institute, believes that Turkey's booming ties with Russia have much to do with personal choices being made by Erdogan as the head of Turkey's ruling party.

Erdogan's government, accused by the West of drifting toward authoritarianism, neither gets along with its Western allies nor feels being part of the West, but it benefits from cooperation with Russia, said Dilek.

Erdogan and Putin have met eight times during the past year, a feat that reveals close cooperation.

Erdogan wants to use the good ties with Moscow as a trump card in his dealings with the West, maintained Dilek, a former staff officer in the Turkish military.

Ankara has been cooperating with Russia and Iran rather than the United States, its NATO partner, in the Syrian theater since the summer of 2016 when it started to restore ties with Moscow.

Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, was in Ankara ahead of Putin's arrival to discuss Syria in particular with his Turkish counterpart Hulusi Akar.

Turkey successfully completed in March, with Moscow's tacit approval, a military operation against Syria's Afrin region held by Kurdish militia, which is seen by Ankara as a terror group.

On Wednesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani joined Erdogan and Putin for a new round of talks on peacemaking in Syria.

【国际英语资讯:News Analysis: Turkey-Russia rapprochement expected to continue amid Turkeys rifts with U.】相关文章：

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