Turkey’s Caspian Sea remarks in no way mend ties with Russia: MoscowJune 18, 2016 - 12:43 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkish officials’ pronouncements on the inadmissibility of making "a Russian lake" out of the Black Sea in no way promote normalization in bilateral relations, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharov said on Friday, June 17, TASS reports. According to her, Ankara is not responding to Russia’s conditions for normalizing bilateral relations. "These messages [from the Turkish leadership to the Russian president, prime minister and foreign minister] have no meaningful elements," she said. "They are purely protocol practices." "But in reality we have been seeing some steps of the Turkish authorities that cannot be called friendly. Such as, in particular, bureaucratic delays, inadmissible from the legal point of view, in reacting to the Russian side’s requests on the organization of a meeting of our consular representatives with Russian citizens kept in custody in Turkey," she said. "Russian air companies have been numerously denied permission to fly over the Turkish territory on cargo delivery missions to Iraq." "We still see no progress in terms of reacting to the conditions repeatedly voiced by the Russian side which are necessary to speak about the emergence of the first prerequisites for normalization of relations with Turkey," she said. Zakharova said earlier that Moscow "has said more than once what it expects Ankara to do to get out of the existing situation." "We have always said that we will maintain relations with the Turkish people. We develop economic and humanitarian ties, but politics cannot but tell on them," she said. "Such situation adds no dynamism to the development of relations in other sectors." The chill in relations between the two countries followed Turkey’s downing a Russian bomber in Syria that was on its way back from an anti-terrorist mission on November 24. Top stories Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev arrived in Moscow on April 22 to hold talks with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Authorities said a total of 192 Azerbaijani troops were killed and 511 were wounded during Azerbaijan’s offensive. In 2023, the Azerbaijani government will increase the country’s defense budget by more than 1.1 billion manats ($650 million). The bill, published on Monday, is designed to "eliminate the shortcomings of an unreasonably broad interpretation of the key concept of "compatriot". Partner news | Armenia border residents dissatisfied with delimitation Residents Kirants are dissatisfied with the results of the delimitation of the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan. “Great success”: Pashinyan pleased with new border protocol Pashinyan has described the signing by Armenia and Azerbaijan of a protocol on delimitation in Tavush as “a great success”. Armenia, Azerbaijan sign protocol on demarcation coordinates Armenia’s government took on May 15 another step towards handing over four border areas to Azerbaijan. Power of One Dram sums up two-year program with Teach for Armenia Idram Junior also joined the companies during the visit, bringing with it a fascinating intellectual game for children |