Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Friday that Turkey and the US agreed to normalize their ties, after weeks of rising tensions due to Turkey's military operation in Syria.
Speaking at a joint press conference with visiting US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Cavusoglu said the two sides will set up mechanisms to address the issues that have strained the bilateral relations.
"Our relations were at a critical turning point," Cavusoglu said, adding that the two sides are going to either correct this or "it was going to take a turn for the worse."
The top Turkish diplomat added that the two sides will hold another meeting by mid-March as part of the mechanisms.
For his part, Tillerson reaffirmed the deep, important relationship between the U.S. and Turkey, which he said is at "a crisis point."
He said the US and Turkey will work together in Syria, where Turkey is conducting a cross-border military operation to fight the Kurdish militia, says Xinhua.
"We are not going to act alone any longer, not the US doing one thing, Turkey doing another," Tillerson said, adding that the two NATO allies have "good mechanisms" to have cooperation.
Both countries share the same objectives in Syria, while pledging to fight Islamic State (IS) and "other terrorist organizations" together, he said.