Turkish President Erdogan breaks protocol when meeting Putin

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stayed in the corridor longer than expected before meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Tehran.

The Russian president had to awkwardly stand in front of the cameras for at least three minutes, The Kommersant said.

"Mr. Putin, who came to the talks a few seconds before the Turkish president, was standing and waiting for him in the conference room, but Erdogan wouldn't show up," Andrei Kolesnikov, a Kommersant journalist said.

Erdogan met Putin's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, in the corridor and started speaking to him in Turkish (Peskov is a Turkologist by education — ed.). The Kremlin spokesman later explained the conversation with the Turkish leader with the phrase "He hasn't seen me for a long time."

Erdogan also broke protocol by addressing Putin first.

"We often communicate,” the Turkish president said. The president of Russia was supposed to start the conversation first.

"In fairness, protocol rules do not work between them for long," the journalist said.

The meeting between Putin and Erdogan took place on July 19 in Tehran during the summit of the Astana troika. The leaders of the two countries discussed key issues of interstate cooperation in the field of trade and global security. At the beginning of the meeting, the Russian president thanked Erdogan for his efforts to resolve the issue of Ukrainian grain exports.