He also said Russia and Turkey could exchange delegations formed by presidential administrations.
"This will help us sort out the current situation," he said. "We need to launch the dialogue today or in the nearest future."
Lavrov is going to China on Wednesday to attend the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA).
Turkish Ambassador to Russia voiced confidence that difficulties in relations with Russia would be overcome. Speaking at the Moscow Union of Journalists, the diplomat noted that "if we do not take into account and pay due attention to the well-adjusted structure of our relations focusing solely on today, that will be a huge mistake, as problems may emerge not only between Russia and Turkey but also between any other countries."
"The most critical and important principle is to look into the future," the ambassador said. "Our relations with Russia extend back nearly 1,000 years, we have 500 years of official relations," the diplomat said. "We are convinced that we will overcome these difficulties. It is necessary to maintain pace and continue to develop our relations." "I do not deny the existing geopolitical realities that Turkey is a country that holds negotiations to join the EU and is a member of NATO," the ambassador said. "But this, of course, does not mean that we ignore relations with Russia and push them into the background."
To date, Russia has taken a number of restrictive measures regarding the trade, economic, and inter-regional cooperation with Turkey. The Russian-Turkish relations deteriorated sharply after the Turkish Air Force shot down Russia’s Su-24 bomber over Syria on November 24. The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a survey titled "Russia’s foreign policy activities in 2015" posted on the ministry’s website on Tuesday that "the anti-Russian stance taken the current Turkish leadership does not allow to hope that the bilateral relations will improve in the foreseeable future."
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