At his fence-mending summit with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin last week, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made a multibillion-dollar gesture to help overcome the crisis over Turkey’s downing of a Russian jet in November. The gesture, estimated to be worth no less than $8 billion, concerns the nuclear power plant the Russians are building in Akkuyu, southern Turkey.
Following the Aug. 9 summit in St. Petersburg, Turkish media outlets, especially the pro-government ones, dropped their anti-Russian and anti-Putin rhetoric to celebrate a “great victory” for bilateral ties. Not everyone, however, was euphoric. Hakan Aksay, a veteran Moscow correspondent for the Turkish press, commented that Putin’s trust in Erdogan had been permanently damaged and made the following observation: “In the name of the [Russian] state’s interests, Putin could well start a new 'era of friendship and cooperation' with Erdogan, the man he had accused of 'stabbing him in the back' yesterday. And actually, he did. But he didn’t call Erdogan a 'friend.' Erdogan repeatedly referred to Putin as 'a friend,' 'my dear friend' or 'my dear friend Vladimir' but never got a similar response.”