Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has spoken about the government's relations with Russia and the NATO during an interview with German media.

"With this visit, we achieved a higher strategic cooperation, a so-called cooperative council on a higher level, and we will have more meetings at this level in the near future. And as you know, there was an incident in the past. After 24 November 2015, when Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet in Syrian airspace, we entered a deplorable phase for both the Turkish and the Russian public. We wanted to apologise for that and usher in a new phase of relations with Russia,"

"With regards to the NATO, there aren’t any problems today. But the NATO has let Turkey down in terms of Syria. Rockets are flying from Syria into Turkey, and they are launched towards Turkey. When will the NATO say, ‘we’re here and we stand with Turkey'? That has not happened,"

"There will be corridors created so that we can bring in humanitarian aid. Russia will support this and will convince the Syrian government. We’ll solve the problem that way," said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.