ISTANBUL
A Turkish presidential source has denied Monday that there was tension in the meeting between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, as was reported in a Russian daily.
Erdogan, who was invited by Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev to the European Games' opening ceremony in Baku, held a closed-to-press meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
A Russian daily reported Monday that there had been tension at the meeting due to Putin's late arrival.
"A Russian newspaper made claims along with fictitious imputations concerning the meeting between Erdogan and Putin, which said that there had been tension before the meeting. There had been no delay or tension," said the Turkish presidential source.
The source added that the Russian president had arrived two or three minutes after Erdogan and that the two leaders had a long conversation behind closed doors.
Erdogan said he delivered to Putin a Russian version of the Turkish delegation’s report on Crimean Tatars and their issues.
Ukraine's Crimean Tatars make up roughly 13 percent of the Crimean population.
The peninsula opted for annexation with Russia in a referendum on March 16, 2014, a vote not recognized by Kiev, Ankara and the Western powers.
There have been numerous reports of increasing repression of minority communities and faiths, in particular Crimean Tatars since the Russian annexation.
