By Hüseyin Bagci, Professor of International...

The forthcoming visit of President Medvedev to Ankara is being expected with a great sense of anticipation and respect. There has never been a time in the past 150 years when the image of Russia was as positive in Turkey as it is now, as public surveys indicate. In the first years following the break-up of the Soviet Union, the Turkish-Russian relations, freed of ideological constraints, made a dramatic improvement. The 1990s were the “construction years,” not only because Turkish construction companies became actively involved in infrastructure projects in Russia, as well as in the new states in the Caucasus and Central Asia, but also in the fields of politics, culture, the economy and social programs.

Turkey expected Russia to become a “new emerging partner” in regional and global politics, and this process was accelerated by the elections in both countries. In 2000, when President Vladimir Putin was elected in Russia and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan

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