Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet for talks in Sochi on Friday. Ukraine and Syria are expected to dominate the agenda of the talks.

Erdogan would like to take advantage of the “diplomatic success” achieved by signing an agreement in Istanbul on the resumption of Ukrainian grain exports from Black Sea ports.

The leader of Ankara will go to Sochi for a second conversation with Putin in about two weeks.

Turkey would like to turn the Istanbul agreement into the beginning of truce talks between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, The Guardian notes, but stresses that there are tensions between the Russian and Turkish leaders.

At a previous meeting in Tehran in July, Putin reportedly told Erdogan that Russia remained opposed to any new offensive Turkey might be planning against Kurdish militants in northern Syria.

A team of Turkish inspectors on Friday began checking a cargo ship before it was sent to pick up grain from the Ukrainian port of Chornomorsk as part of the agreement on the resumption of Ukrainian grain exports, the Turkish Ministry of Defense reported.

The ministry released photos showing an inspection team boarding a boat to head to a Barbadian-flagged cargo ship anchored in the Black Sea, north of Istanbul’s Bosphorus.