Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent visit to Russia produced some significant symbolic messages. The first goal of the summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin was to tell the United States and European Union, “We can solve our problems without you, even despite you, and become friends.”

For the past 300 years, Turkish-Russian relations have been shaped by the dynamics of their relations with the West. There is a historical tendency for Russia and Turkey to use their bilateral relations as a card to play in their ties with the West. Turkey especially has sought to improve its relations with Russia whenever ties with the West seemed shaky.

The Aug. 9 meeting was Erdogan's first foreign visit after a July 15 attempted coup. It also came 268 days after Turkish F-16s shot down a Russian jet Nov. 24 for violating Turkish air space.

Based on Erdogan and Putin's joint press conference and subsequent media comments, Ankara above all wants to restore trade volume to the level it had reached before Turkey shot down the Russian jet, especially in tourism, agriculture and construction. Erdogan's target of a $100 billion trade volume says Turkey places a priority on trade balance. Ali Bilgin Varlik of the Ankara-based Central Strategy Institute said Turkey’s exports to Russia make up only 25-27% of the trade volume between the countries. The balance is skewed because of Turkey’s dependence on Russian natural gas. In 2014, 55% of Turkey’s natural gas imports were from Russia.