MOSCOW: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will visit Russia on August 9 for his first face-to-face meeting with Vladimir Putin, since Moscow and Ankara made peace over the downing of a Russian jet last year, Turkish officials said on Tuesday. “The ambassador informed us that our president (Erdogan) has confirmed that he will be in Saint Petersburg on the 9th (of August),” Russian news agencies quoted Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek as saying. Turkey confirmed the date, saying that Erdogan and Putin had agreed to meet ahead of the G20 summit in China in September. Simsek has been the highest ranking Turkish official to visit Russia since the jet issue sparked an unprecedented crisis in their relations. He went to Moscow to meet his Russian counterpart, Arkady Dvorkovich, in an effort to quickly normalise the situation and the Turkey-Russia relations. Dvorkovich told the Russian media that he discussed a wide range of investment projects with Simsek, including the possible resumption of talks, frozen in December, on the ‘Turk Stream project’ to pipe gas to Turkey and the southern Europe.