Turkey's President Erdogan Seeks Closer Ties With Putin

Note: This BBC interview can be heard in the Here & Now podcast or with the WBUR app.

Today, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Saint Petersburg. It's Erdogan's first foreign meeting since an attempted coup and crackdown in Turkey last month.

Relations between the two countries soured in November when Turkey shot down a Russian jet near the Syrian border, to which Russia responded with painful economic sanctions against Turkey. In June, Erdoğan issued an apology for the incident, setting the stage for today's meeting.

Here & Now's Robin Young gets the latest from the BBC's Mark Lowen.

Mark Lowen, BBC Turkey correspondent. He tweets @marklowen