Moscow regrets Turkey’s position over Crimea’s voting, stresses Turkey partner

The Kremlin regrets Turkey’s refusal to recognize the results of the recent Russian legislative elections in Crimea and hopes the republic will change its stance on the peninsula, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.

“We don’t accept such statements [about non-recognition of the elections in Crimea] and we openly say this to our Turkish colleagues,” Peskov said. “The issue of Crimea is an issue on which our positions are dramatically different. We express regrets in connection with this stance, but we hope that political will will be shown over time and Turkey will change this position, simply acknowledging the truth and the real state of things,” he added.

Peskov also stressed that Turkey is Russia’s partner and the “presence of significant issues on which there are disagreements, is not and should not be an obstacle for the development of the whole range of bilateral relations and cooperation on a number of regional issues”.

“Cooperation must be continued, it is first of all in the interests of the Russian side, as well as in the interests of the Turkish side”. “As for the points of differences, we will continue to work on these points with the Turkish side, explaining our position and expecting that we will manage to bring our positions closer sooner or later,” he summed up.