Presindent of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan is in Russia for resetting relations with both Countries

Erdogan and Putin

Erdogan's visit to Putin's hometown of St Petersburg on Tuesday is also his first foreign trip since a failed coup attempt last month that sparked a purge of alleged coup supporters in the military, judiciary, civil service and education sector, and cast a shadow over Turkey's relations with the West.

"Your visit today, despite a very difficult situation regarding domestic politics, indicates that we all want to restart dialogue and restore relations between Russia and Turkey," Putin said as the two met.

Erdogan said that Turkey was entering a "very different period" in relations with Russia, and that solidarity between the two countries would help the resolution of regional problems.

Erdogan also thanked his Russian counterpart for a telephone call after the failed coup attempt on July 15, saying it "brought our people great happiness".

The shooting down of the Russian jet by a Turkish F-16 over the Syrian border last November saw a furious Putin slap economic sanctions on Turkey and launch a blistering war of words with Erdogan that seemed to irrevocably damage burgeoning ties.

"When the Turkish military shot down a Russian fighter jet that it said strayed from Syrian into Turkish airspace last November, Moscow's retaliation was swift," Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith, reporting from Istanbul, said.

"Tourist charter flights to Turkey stopped, Russian visitor numbers fell by 87 percent. Turkey's exports to Russia, including food, fell by more than half to $730m in the first six months of this year."