Ankara, Moscow to discuss easing visa regime for Turkish businessmen

Russia and Turkey are set to discuss the possibility of easing the visa regime for certain categories of Turkish citizens, particularly businessmen, a senior Russian diplomat stated.

"We plan on Feb. 9 to hold detailed consultations with Turkey on consular affairs. One of the key issues will be the facilitation of the visa regime for certain categories of Turkish citizens. Some eases are in our plans, mainly to boost economic ties. In this vein, this move is mainly the case for entrepreneurs," the Russian Foreign Ministry's Fourth European Department Director Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko said.

A number of limits in Turkey's bilateral visa and trade transactions with Russia still remain in place, top Turkish officials have recently expressed. 

"Turkish trucks still cannot work there and companies still suffer from visa restrictions. We hope these problems will be over but we are uncomfortable," Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci told a group of journalists early 2017, voicing unease with the ongoing embargoes by Russia on many products from Turkey. 

Botsan-Kharchenko, however, noted that lifting visa restrictions and going back to the visa-free regime immediately would not be the case. 

"We cannot say these would never be resolved. Now, our ties with Ankara have normalized not only on foreign ministry levels, but also in military and special services sides. We hope that these ties would yield results. Then, we will focus further over the visa issues," he added.