ANKARA: President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced on Monday that he will visit Saudi Arabia in February as Ankara is continuing to take steps toward normalization with several regional countries.
Speaking on the sidelines of a meeting he attended in Istanbul, where he announced preliminary foreign trade figures for 2021, Erdoğan said that trade with the kingdom will be discussed next month.
Ankara and Riyadh have in recent months attempted to repair some diplomatic damage after a decade of tension, especially after the 2018 murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Saudi Arabia’s Istanbul Consulate.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in April and May discussed bilateral relations with the Saudi King Salman. A month later, Erdoğan said Ankara hoped to maximize its cooperation with Gulf nations.
Turkey in May sent a delegation to Saudi Arabia for talks and Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu met in Riyadh with his Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan.
The kingdom never publicly acknowledged it was boycotting goods from Turkey, but last year Saudi business people and retailers endorsed the move amid political tensions between the two regional rivals.
To circumvent the unofficial blockade, some Turkish exporters have been rerouting food, clothing and other goods.
