Turkey and Russia will sign a visa removal agreement next week. Turkey and
Russia are expected to sign the agreement during Russian President Dmitriy
Medvedev´s visit to Turkey on May 11-12.

"The consulates of the two countries have initialed the agreement to lift
visa procedures," Turkey´s Ambassador to Russia Halil Akıncı told the
Anatolia news agency.

Akıncı said Russia had requested small changes in the editing of the
agreement.

However, Medvedev and Turkish President Abdullah Gül could sign the
agreement without waiting for domestic approval process to end, Akıncı said.

Transitions between Turkey and Russia without any visa are expected to begin
within this year.

Removal of visa procedures first came up during Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdoğan´s visit to Moscow last January. Two countries have launched
necessary studies as Russia was also positive towards the move.

The initialed agreement foresees tourist visits for up to one month between
the two countries to be exempted from visa.

Turkish citizens earning their living in Russia and Turkish students having
education in Russia are expected to be out of this implementation.

According to Turkey, 2.6 million Russian people visited Turkey last year.
This figure was 1.9 million according to Russia´s statistics.

Turkish citizens preferring Moscow as a tourist destination is around
30,000-40,000.

Quoted from: here

Good luck Russians is all I can say, unfortunately our perception of the Russian people seems to be weird and wrong.

Since a couple of decades ago, Turkey has been seeking to establish partnerships alternative to the make believe EU integration. Futurologists see no future in Europe. Russia with all its rich energy resources and rapidly increasing purchasing power is too hot a prospect to miss for Turkey.

There are a few more great things about being friends with Russians: e.g they do no threaten us when our parliament don´t let them  attack other nations using our territory which is something that the US takes for granted.

Why can´t a post about Turkey and Russia not be about Turkey and Russia? It has to be anti-EU anti-US again

 All political things are related to each other like the branches on one big "tree of politics" maybe?

Maybe it´s your perception. I think we have only described the current situation. It´s it and that´s that.

What do you think is anti-EU here for example?

where is it anti-eu or anti-us?

 That´s negative, right?

oi, you are babbling, barba, definetly!

Well, that might be negative depending on your point of view. Just as you are, I am entitled to my opinion and everyone is free to establish links among different concepts.

I don´t want to teach you anything but let me make this explanation:

When nations deal with one another, they invariably seek to further and/or to protect their interests. It is generally thought that this point serves a basic principle upon which all treaties, agreements and decisions must be based. Turkey-EU or Turkey-Russia relations can be evaluated from this point of view: what is gained or what is lost.

That there is no future in Europe is not something I came up with. This point has been frequently covered by major European financial publications.

That the US requested to use Turkish air, sea and land territory to launch a new front against Iraq is a very well-documented event of our near history. When the Turkish parliament refused to grant that right to the US a crisis between Turkey and the US broke out.  A visiting US senator openly threatened Turkey saying something like this : If Turkey does not help US she has more to lose. The US can defend Chicago or New York but can Turkey hold on to Izmir or Istanbul in a future war?

To set the record straight, I am not anti-american. Many of my friends are American citizens. I like the American culture. What I am against is despotism, militarism and racism which are unfortunately amply present in that country. Still, I can differentiate between good and bad aspects of America.

I believe you are a logical person. I hope you will understand what I am really against. It is certainly not the Western culture.

This is I heard for years. I didnt believe then. Today I agree with such predictions.

As for Russia, it is a good balance to the western world.

I´m not saying you can´t be negative about the EU or the US. I have my doubts about the European Union as well (especially with how Greece is behaving) and the US isn´t my favourite country in the world. However, I was just wondering why a threat about Russia and Turkey had to turn into a negative thread about the EU and US again.

I would love to learn about how greece is behaving.

Ah, welllll... The Greek goverment lied about the real deficit they had on their state budget. Before it was said that the deficit was 3.7 percent, turns out is was 12.7 percent. Which kind of sucks for the other euro-countries (including mine :S) since it´s not really cool for a government to lie about these kind of thing whe you have common money with other countries. The whole bail-out for Greece is connected to strict requirements, and I get that the Greek people are upset about that, but that´s just the effect of years and years of totally messed up economical planning. Setting buildings on fire (like happened last week, killing people in the process) won´t help anybody.

It´s hardly a surprise Turkey is looking for allies that are going to treat it seriously and on real partnership terms. Turkey has the right to feel deceived by the EU and USA, which seem to tempt, promise demand and don´t give much in return. Quite a logical step to take is to find somebody that´s more likely to keep a healthy balance.

Well, the history of my country has taught me that Russia is not really fond of partnership, but...things change and so do state policies.

I hope Turkish economy will benefit from visa-free flow of people

Daydreamer, I know the outlines of Poland´s history. I know how Poland feels isolated from Western Europe and how countries like Germany and Russia treated it.

Through the end of the empire, Turkey found itself in a similar position when all the major powers in Europe began attacking the Turkish territory. Countless fronts were opened and a whole generation virtually lost their lives in the trenches death fighting a hopeless war. We know that medical schools in the country could not graduate anyone since all of their pupils had lost their lives at war. Today, what is left behind from this terrible episode of the WWI are the memories of desperation, poverty and claims of genocide. We would not want to go through this again.

Nonetheless, doing business is thought to be one way to stay away from war. No one would like to lose a partner helping you make profit. There is a largely untouched potential for partnerships outside Europe. The country is just trying to capitalize on those prospects.

Greece has recently become the black sheep of the EU. That is a shame. By the look of the things, the EU is an organization run by myriad of rules and regulations. Accession is difficult and time taking. One would expect, no country stands a chance to enter before achieving full compliance. For example, Turkey has been left outside of the organization since she has not been able to achieve full compliance.

The EU members said good bye to their national currencies, adopted Euro and began trading as chartered by the EU decision makers. This scheme did not work in Greece. Life has become more expensive and the people began moaning about the EU. Germany is not doing well either. Inflation has revisited Europe after so many decades.

I don´t know what kind of a union this is. Everyone is pointing their fingers at Greece. It seems, soon there will be other victims of the economic crisis. If nations don´t help each other in the hour of need what is the point of being in a union?

Loved your post!

Thank you, good post!

 I have to stop you there. The other countries ARE stepping up to help Greece. They have promised billions of euro´s to help Greece. This ticks the people in these "save your behind" countries off. Why? Because the only reason why "we" (my tax-euro´s are also going to go to Greece) have to save Greece is because their old government didn´t follow the basic rules of being in the euro, and thus had a crazy economic system. If Greece would have made the real tax numbers, income and outcome numbers public, even a high school economics, level 1 student could have forseen a big economic crisis in the future. This crisis in Greece is not something that is only due to the world wide financial crisis. This is because of the state´s miss-management. Greece lied, spend WAY more then they were actually making, and now we have to help them. It feels like we´ve been cheated on

It´s like having a poor brother. The kind of brother who borrows money everywhere, but doesn´t have a good job to pay that money back. As the rich brother, you have to help him. You´re his brother after all. So, you pay his debt. But you make strict rules about how you give this money, because you don´t want your brother to mess up again. How do you make sure the poor brother doesn´t lie in the future again, just because he knows his rich brother will save him again?

Anyway, let´s talk about Russia, since I don´t see many arguments FOR Russia, except for "Russia is not the EU or US."

 +1 I can´t believe I agree with you but well said.

My arguments for Russia, for example be:

* stability by all means

* cheaper oil

* military stability

* good relationships with Russia means good relationships with other many countries in east.

* possibility to stand up for the western expansion

* means EU is not necessary

* Russia doesnt require much unlike EU

*etc

"Stability by all means" is questionable. There are some strange things happening in Russia, and the stability in government might just be a stability of fear. Critical journalists who die under strange circumstances or disappear in thin air... it´s not a good thing. And there are some problems with certain regions of Russia, including terrorism.

The oil thing is true though. I never uderstood why petrol and other oil products are so expensive in Turkey while they are so close to the source!

I any case it´s good to have good ties with your neighbors.

With a territory so vast and ethnicities so diverse Russia has enough stability for its region.

There are lots of negative things to talk about Russia. I would be the first to throw a stone.

Unlike former Soviet republics Turkey is way stronger to be partners on equal terms. For the moment Russia is seeking political allies. It has come to certain agreements with Iran. I am 100% sure that Russia is gaining gradually its power back. It has learnt and changed its external politics. It wants to obtain the world wide acceptance not by terror as it used to practice but by economic dependance (oil for loaylty).

True, Turkey would be a more stable partner for Russia then any former Soviet Union. But let´s say, Turkey gets oil from Russia. What will Russia get from Turkey?

Hmmm.... I wrote in my previous post: Oil for loyalty. Germany is an example.

Russia does not need a thing but a political ally. Russia has been watching Turkey´s unsuccessful attempt to join EU and just made a move in time. Maybe?

Russia will soon break Ukraine, Georgia who have joined NATO and attempting to join EU. Both countries understood that EU  or the West has nothing to give except the slogans about freedom and democracy. Slogans will not make your stomach full and will not warm you up in the harsh winters.

I think Eastern Europe should come out of EU. What did EU give to Poland? It gave migration only.

Just migration is actually a lot. I see a lot of Polish workers here, who have a job here, save money, and use it back home to build something for themselves. But yeah, politics, it´s like pre-school Everybody wants to have a buddy to play with and stick up for them on the playground. "If you are my friend, you have to help me when people bully me, but I will give you a lollipop!" Some things never change

Such a delusion!

As for Russia. All I know from the history is that nothing good came out of union with Russia. But who knows?

 Turkish men:

DJxxxx

Amen!

There was some research on what Polish workers did with their money they earned in Holland. Because some racist a-holes in Holland were complaining that "the Polish people were coming but never leaving again" they researched if this was true. Turned out the majority of the Polish people would stay here a maximum of 2, 3 years after which they would start a business in Poland. So, for the majority, not a delusion.

By the way, I heard something about Russia building a nuclear plant in Turkey...

For example, yes, we are members of NATO and it is a very important dimension of our relations. But nobody should limit our relations only to military or security bases. If there is no economic dimension, cultural dimension and diplomatic dimension, that military dimension alone will not be strong enough to develop a model partnership. Now, if we are so compatible and need each other, to be frank, it is not easy to explain why the total trade volume between Turkey and the United States is only around 16 billion US Dollars, while Turkish-Russian trade volume is 38 billion US Dollars, more than double. We can speak of Korean memories; but with Russia, throughout the Cold War, we were in different camps and we were seeing each other as enemies. However, after the Cold War, within 15 years we reached the level of 38 billion US Dollars in our trade relations. Now, how can we explain that our trade volume with our main strategic ally with whom we worked together for 50 years during the Cold War and defeated the Soviet threat together is just 16 billion US Dollars? This is not sustainable. This cannot continue.

Quoted from: the Speech Delivered by the Minister of Foreign Affairs H.E. Ahmet Davutoğlu at the 28th Annual Conference on US-Turkish Relations Organized by ATC-DEIK