Mr Sechin said that he expected the meeting to be fruitful, and that he hoped that the commission would finally draw up the bilateral documents to be signed during President Dmitry Medvedev's upcoming visit to Turkey following the meeting. "Turkey is one of our pivotal trading and economic partners," he stressed.

The Deputy Prime Minister added that the commission would focus on the following priorities for the two countries' energy partnership: atomic energy, natural gas and petroleum products exports, construction of the Samsun-Ceyhan oil pipeline and energy. "We also expect to take concrete steps in our transport and industrial partnership," the Deputy Prime Minister said, emphasising an ambitious joint venture for the construction of a steel mill in Turkey.

Mr Sechin also mentioned several other issues the two countries were discussing, particularly the introduction of visa-free travel between Russia and Turkey. He recalled that the initiative was first proposed by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan during his visit to Moscow last January.