Erdoğan: Turkey ready to help reduce tensions between Pakistan, India

Turkey is ready to do its part to de-escalate tension between Pakistan and India, said President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Saturday.

Escalating tension between India and Pakistan helps no one, Erdoğan told a campaign rally in Trabzon, in Turkey's Black Sea region.

Erdoğan also hailed Pakistan's move in handing over an Indian pilot downed in the recent tension, adding that he looks forward to seeing similar steps from India.

On Friday, Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, an Indian pilot who became the face of escalating conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbors, was handed over to Indian authorities by Pakistan.

Varthaman had been held in Pakistan after his aircraft was downed on Wednesday in a dogfight with Pakistani jets along the de facto Kashmir border.

A day later, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan announced his release in a widely hailed gesture of goodwill.

Earlier today, Erdoğan announced a new drillship, the Yavuz, will begin exploring for oil in the Mediterranean Sea after its maintenance work is completed.

Turkey's first drillship, the Fatih, started its first deep drilling offshore Antalya on the county's southern Mediterranean coast last October.

The country's first seismic vessel, the Barbaros Hayrettin Paşa, bought from Norway in 2013, has been doing exploration in the Mediterranean since April 2017.

Its second vessel, the MTA Oruç Reis, which Turkish engineers built in a local shipyard in Istanbul last June, is doing work in the Black Sea.