The period of visa-free stay for Russian citizens in Turkey has been increased from two to three months.

This statement was made by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu during a meeting with a group of Russian-language media journalists from 24 countries, Anadolu Agency reports. According to Cavusoglu, the issue of simplifying the visa regime with Russia was discussed even before the incident with the downing of the Russian Su-24 aircraft.

In November 2015, after the incident with the Turkish Air Force shooting down a Russian Su-24 bomber that took part in a military operation in Syria. After this, relations between the two countries deteriorated sharply, and on January 1, 2016, Russia introduced a visa regime for Turkish citizens, but Ankara did not take retaliatory measures.

At the beginning of March 2017, a meeting took place between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin, during which the issue of Russia’s abolition of the visa regime for Turkish citizens was also discussed.

At the end of March 2017, Çavuşoğlu said that infrastructure was being created at Turkish airports in order to identify tourists arriving from Russia using Russian internal passports. “Now that our relations are normal again, we can return to negotiations on this issue,” Cavusoglu explained then.