UPDATE: Russia to suspend visa-free regime with Turkey from Jan 1

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MOSCOW / CHEREPOVETS, Vologda Region, Nov 27 (PRIME) -- Russia has made a decision to suspend the visa-free regime with Turkey from January 1, 2016, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday at a news conference.

“The Russian authorities have made a decision to suspend the visa-free regime that is now in force between Russia and the Republic of Turkey. It will come into force from January 1 next year,” he said, adding that this is not “a far-fetched threat.”

“On the contrary, these threats are actually real and we announce that with responsibility,” he said.

Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich told reporters separately that the Russian government will submit a report on possible retaliation measures against Turkey to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Saturday. “As the prime minister said yesterday…the deadline for the report is two days, so it will be tomorrow, on Saturday,” he said.

It is too early to speak about any possible restrictions, including a ban on exports of Russian grain to Turkey, he said.

A high-ranked official of Russia’s Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation said that Moscow will soon freeze all projects in the sphere of the military and technical cooperation with Turkey.

Previously, defense industry supplier Rosoboronexport planned to launch Mi-17 helicopter maintenance centers in Turkey. Russia also planned to increase supplies of arms to the country in the foreseeable future, Anatoly Aksyonov, an advisor to the company’s CEO, said earlier.

On Tuesday, Russia’s Sukhoi Su-24 bomber was shot down by an air-to-air Turkish missile and crashed in Syria. Russian President Vladimir Putin said it was “a stab in the back” from “accomplices of terrorists” and promised serious consequences in relations between Moscow and Ankara.

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