On the sidelines of a regional conference on Wednesday in the Kazakh city of Astana, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will have a meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, a Turkish official told AFP.
Turkey enjoys strong ties with both of its Black Sea neighbours, Russia and Ukraine, and has maintained its neutral position during the turmoil in that country.
Erdogan has yet to respond to the widespread Russian attacks on Ukraine on Monday that left at least 19 people dead and more than 100 injured.
However, a phone contact was made between Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and his Ukrainian colleague Dmytro Kuleba following the assaults, a Turkish diplomatic source claimed without going into further detail.
On the eve of a regional conference in Uzbekistan last month, Erdogan and Putin had a meeting.
He still aspires to bring Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, and Vladimir Putin together for peace negotiations, which neither side especially wants but which, according to Turkish officials, are both necessary and achievable.
Turkey, a NATO member, has resisted supporting Western sanctions on Russia.
Erdogan is eager to increase commerce with Moscow as he works to restore stability to the faltering Turkish economy ahead of the elections scheduled for next June.
Last month, Ankara succumbed to American pressure and announced the closure of the final three Turkish banks still accepting Russian credit card payments.
The choice came after weeks of increasingly direct warnings from Washington that Turkey could either cut back on its commercial connections with Russia or risk being subject to its own sanctions.
