ST. PETERSBURG/ISTANBUL: Russia and Turkey took a big step toward normalizing relations Tuesday, with their leaders announcing an acceleration in trade and energy ties at a time when both countries have troubled economies and strains with the West.

President Vladimir Putin received his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a Czarist-era palace outside his home city of St. Petersburg. It was Erdogan’s first foreign trip since last month’s failed military coup, which left Turkey’s relationship with the United States and Europe badly damaged.

The visit is being closely watched in the West, where some fear both men, powerful leaders ill-disposed to dissent, might use their rapprochement to exert pressure on Washington and the European Union and stir tensions within NATO, the military alliance of which Turkey is a member.

Putin said Moscow would gradually phase out sanctions against Ankara, imposed after the Turks shot down a Russian fighter jet near the Syrian border nine months ago, and bringing ties to their pre-crisis level was the priority.

“Do we want a full-spectrum restoration of relations? Yes and we will achieve that,” Putin told a joint news conference after an initial round of talks. “Life changes quickly.”

Cooperation would be increased on projects including a planned $20 billion gas pipeline and a nuclear power plant to be built in Turkey by the Russians, Erdogan said, as well as between their two defense sectors.

“God willing, with these steps the Moscow-Ankara axis will again be a line of trust and friendship.”

The leaders were to discuss the war in Syria, over which they remain deeply divided, in a subsequent closed-door session. Progress there is likely to be more halting, with Moscow backing President Bashar Assad and Ankara wanting him out of power.

Turkey has been incensed by what it sees as Western concern over its post-coup crackdown but indifference to the bloody putsch itself.

Putin’s rapid phone call expressing his solidarity to Erdogan in the wake of the failed putsch had been a “psychological boost,” the Turkish president said.Turkish officials, by contrast, warned Tuesday of rising anti-American sentiment and of risks to a crucial migrant deal with Europe, in a sign of deteriorating relations.

Erdogan blames Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim preacher who has lived in self-imposed exile in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania since 1999, and his followers for the failed coup.

Turkey has launched a series of mass purges of suspected Gulen supporters in its armed forces, other state institutions, universities, schools and the media, prompting Western worries for the stability of the NATO ally.

Denmark’s ruling party said Tuesday the EU should end accession negotiations with Turkey completely over Erdogan’s “undemocratic initiatives,” the latest European country to condemn developments in Turkey.

Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said hostility toward the United States was rising among Turks and could be calmed only by the extradition of Gulen, who denies any involvement in the coup and has condemned it.

In Washington, the U.S. State Department criticized charges in the Turkish press that a Washington think tank had been behind the coup attempt.

“This sort of conspiracy theory, inflammatory rhetoric ... is absolutely not helpful,” State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said.

Despite the timing of the Russia visit, Ankara has insisted that Erdogan’s meeting with Putin is not meant to signal a fundamental shift in Turkish foreign policy.

Turkey hosts American troops and warplanes at its Incirlik Air Base, an important staging area for the U.S.-led fight against Daesh (ISIS) militants in neighboring Iraq and Syria.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told the Bild daily that he was not worried about Russia and Turkey improving ties. “I do not believe that relations between the two countries will become so close that Russia can offer Turkey an alternative to the NATO security partnership.”

Putin told Erdogan that he hoped Ankara could fully restore order after the failed coup, saying Moscow always opposed unconstitutional actions.

Erdogan’s meeting with Putin was only his second with a foreign head of state since the coup, following a visit to Ankara by the Kazakh president Friday. Turkish officials have questioned why no Western leader has come to show solidarity.

Turkey and Russia would reinstate their annual bilateral trade target of $100 billion, Erdogan said, which had been abandoned after Russia imposed the sanctions.

Tourism revenue, a mainstay of the Turkish economy, has been hit hard by an 87 percent dive in Russian visitors in the first six months of the year.

Putin said the question of resuming Russian charter flights to Turkey, halted under the sanctions, would be solved in the near future.

The two leaders also agreed to revive the gas pipeline project, known as TurkStream, meant to be supply Turkey with additional volumes of Russian gas and increase deliveries to Europe in the future.

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said the first line of TurkStream to supply Turkey could be built as early as 2019 but that solid European guarantees were needed before a second line from Russia to the EU across Turkey could be built.