Planned Putin-Erdoğan summit in Russia cancelled: Kremlin

MOSCOW - Reuters

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A bilateral summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan planned for Dec. 15 in St. Petersburg will not now happen, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Dec. 14.

The summit was agreed upon during a meeting between the two men in Turkey on the sidelines of a G-20 summit last month which predated Ankara's shooting down of a Russian military jet near the Syrian-Turkish border.

"It won't happen, it's not planned," Peskov said of the summit when asked about it by reporters on Dec. 14.

Ties between Moscow and Ankara have sharply deteriorated since the downing of the Russian jet on Nov.24, a move described by Putin as "a dastardly stab in the back".

Moscow has imposed economic sanctions on Turkey, and Putin, clearly referring to Turkish forces, ordered his own armed forces last Friday to "shoot down immediately any target" which threatens Russian troops or infrastructure in Syria.