Turkey's presidency said President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russia's Vladimir Putin spoke by phone on Wednesday about efforts to keep navigation safe in the Black Sea.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed efforts to keep navigation safe in the Black Sea during a phone call on Wednesday, according to a statement from Turkey's Presidential Directorate of Communications cited by Nhan Dan.
The Vietnamese state newspaper's Oct. 7 world brief reported the call as one of several diplomatic items that day. It did not publish a transcript or a list of other topics.
The conversation comes while merchant shipping in and near the Black Sea remains under strain from the war in Ukraine. Separate reports on Oct. 7 said Bulgaria had halted a search for sailors missing after a merchant ship sank following a drone strike in Bulgarian waters, with the perpetrators still unidentified.
Ankara has previously positioned itself as a channel between Moscow and Kyiv on grain and shipping arrangements. The presidential statement, as summarized, framed Wednesday's call around navigation safety rather than a new agreement.
No joint communique from the Kremlin was included in the Nhan Dan account. Further details of any operational steps were not published in that brief.