Kremlin: Planned Putin-Erdogan Summit Canceled

MOSCOW (Reuters) —
FILE - In this file photo taken on Monday, Nov. 16, 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pose for the media before their talks during the G-20 Summit in Antalya, Turkey. Putin ordered the deployment of long-range air defense missiles to a Russian military base in Syria and Russia‘s military said it would destroy any target that may threaten its warplanes following the downing of a Russian military jet by Turkey. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, file)
In this file photo taken on Nov. 16, Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pose for the media before their talks during the G-20 summit in Antalya, Turkey. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)

A bilateral summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan planned for Dec. 15 in St. Petersburg will now not happen, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday.

The summit was agreed upon during a meeting between the two men in Turkey on the sidelines of a G-20 summit last month, which predated Ankara’s shooting down of a Russian military jet near the Syrian-Turkish border.

“It won’t happen, it’s not planned,” Peskov said of the summit when asked about it by reporters on Monday.

Ties between Moscow and Ankara have sharply deteriorated since the downing of the Russian jet on Nov.24, a move described by Putin as “a dastardly stab in the back.”

Moscow has imposed economic sanctions on Turkey, and Putin, clearly referring to Turkish forces, ordered his own armed forces last Friday to “shoot down immediately any target” which threatens Russian troops or infrastructure in Syria.

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