ISTANBUL – On the evening of August 31, the newly built stadium in Antalya on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast will host a soccer match between the national teams of Turkey and Russia.
It is scheduled as a “friendly” match, although relations between the two countries have been far from living up to this adjective over the eight months since the downing of a Russian jet by Turkish aircraft in November last year.
However, with a reconciliation process between the two countries starting in June and gaining significant momentum through the visits of a number of Turkish cabinet members to Moscow last week and an upcoming meeting between the two countries’ presidents, there are sufficient grounds to expect this soccer game to herald the normalization of relations between Ankara and Moscow. Continue reading
Global Geopolitics 