Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Becomes Ambassador to Russia

Türkiye's new Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan appointed the ministry's spokesman, Tanju Bilgic, as Ambassador to Russia, Anadolu news agency reported.

Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgic will become the country's ambassador to Russia. (Source: Anadolu)

Mr. Tanju Bilgic is a veteran diplomat who was in charge of the Turkish Consulate in St. Petersburg, Russia from 2011 to 2014. He also served as the Turkish Ambassador to Serbia and as the Director of the Information Department at the Turkish Foreign Ministry.

Bilgic's appointment to replace Ambassador Mehmet Samsar in Moscow coincided with the Kremlin's announcement of Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Ankara.

Interfax news agency quoted Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yury Ushakov as saying that President Vladimir Putin and his counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed that the Russian leader would “soon” visit Turkey.

Speaking to Russian media on June 15, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan raised a series of priority topics on the upcoming agenda during their first phone call on June 9.

These include counterterrorism in the Middle East, disagreements over the expansion of the Black Sea Grain Initiative and Türkiye's normalization talks with Syria and Armenia.

Russia's RIA Novosti news agency reported that the deputy foreign ministers of Russia, Syria, Turkey and Iran will meet in the Kazakh capital Astana on June 21 to continue Kremlin-brokered talks aimed at ending more than a decade of hostility between Ankara and Damascus.

Source: https://baoquocte.vn/tho-nhi-ky-nguoi-phat-ngon-bo-ngoai-giao-tro-thanh-dai-su-tai-nga-231440.html