Turkey okays to normalizing ties with France

Turkey to normalise and improve ties with France if Paris showed the same willingness, said Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Thursday as reported by Reuters. He stated that French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has agreed to exert normalizing relations despite continued bilateral tensions over several issues.

"We have been working on an action plan, or roadmap, to normalize relations and it has been going well. If France is sincere, Turkey is ready to normalize ties with France as well," Cavusoglu told reporters after a meeting with Portuguese Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva in Lisbon.

As the spat between the two over policies in Syria, Libya, the eastern Mediterranean and Nagorno-Karabakh exists, it has risen to new levels as France moved to extinguish Islamist extremism.

Last month, the EU decided to prepare disciplinary measures in response to Ankara's miningfor offshore resources gas in Greek and Cypriot watersin the eastern Mediterranean, but postponed the measures until March despite an earlier push by France to sanction Ankara.In September, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and French President Emmanuel Macron tried to sort out their differences but failed as the two traded accusations over a host of issues.

Speaking at a news conference last week, Cavusoglu said Turkey was ready to take steps to improve ties with the United States and hoped the Biden administration would do the same.