Kremlin repeats invitation to Erdoğan to visit Crimea

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said that an invitation to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to visit Crimea is in force. "President Erdoğan has a valid invitation from President Putin to visit Crimea and see everything with his own eyes, to have, so to say, first-hand information," Peskov said, adding that Kremlin doesn't share Erdoğan's concerns on the situation of Crimean Tatars.

Monday February 03 2020 03:33 pm

Duvar English

An invitation to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to visit Crimea is in force, Russian president’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Feb. 3.

Commenting on Erdoğan’s concerns about the situation of Crimean Tatars, the Kremlin spokesman said that Moscow did not share these concerns categorically.

"We can’t agree with what is being said in this context. We have repeatedly said that any concerns regarding Crimean Tatars are groundless. President [Vladimir] Putin explained the real state of things [to the Turkish leader] more than once," TASS cited Peskov as saying.

"President Erdoğan has a valid invitation from President Putin to visit Crimea and see everything with his own eyes, to have, so to say, first-hand information," he noted.

At a meeting with public activists in Simferopol on March 18, 2019, the Russian president said he had invited his Turkish counterpart to attend the opening ceremony of the cathedral mosque in Crimea and the latter, according to Putin, had taken the invitation positively.

The erection of the mosque began in Simferopol in October 2016 and its opening is planned for April 2020.