During a telephone conversation with the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Vladimir Putin reiterated his willingness to provide the necessary help to his Turkish partners to mitigate the consequences of the devastating earthquakes that took place this Monday in the southeast of the country, the service reported. press release of the Russian Presidency.
For his part, the Turkish president thanked his Russian counterpart for his solidarity, specifying that he will send instructions to the relevant departments of his nation to accept the help provided by the rescuers sent by Moscow.
Earlier, Putin held a call with Syrian President Bashar al Assad, in which he offered to send rescue teams from the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry to Syrian territory in the next few hours.
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake, which struck southeastern Turkey and northern Syria at dawn, and another 7.5 magnitude, which struck central Turkey hours later, left hundreds dead and injured, as well as thousands of buildings destroyed.
Previously, the Turkish president described the first earthquake as the most powerful since 1939. “Tonight at 04:17 we were shaken by the biggest disaster since the 1939 Erzincan earthquake that we have experienced in the last century,” he said. with RT