CONSTANTA - The Sixth Tripartite Summit of the presidents of Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria in Naptun town of Constanta, Romania ended on Wednesday.
In their joint statement, President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, Romanian President Ion Iliescu and Bulgarian President Georgi Purvanov said that at the sixth summit, they exchanged their opinions on several fields about security and stability in the Black Sea region and southeastern Europe.
Stressing importance of tripartite political dialogue among Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria for stability in southeastern Europe and building of confidence in the region, the statement said that those three countries stressed their political will about their more concrete contribution to process of stability, security and peace in the region and its surroundings and their undertaking more important roles in the region.
Noting that an agreement had been reached on importance of consolidation of economic relations among those three countries, the statement said that special importance would be attributed especially to consolidation of concrete cooperation in economic field.
Stating that Bulgaria's and Romania's accession to the European Union (EU) in 2007 was expected to be confirmed at the EU Summit in Thessaloniki, Greece this month, the statement said that Turkey's EU membership perspective should be reaffirmed at the EU Summit in Thessaloniki.
The three leaders said in their joint statement that they accepted importance of establishment of a mechanism which allowed regular consultations on common interests regarding integration with the EU.
The statement said that the three leaders expressed their pleasure with the historic decisions which had been taken at the EU's Copenhagen and the NATO's Prague summits and also opened bilateral and tripartite long-term perspectives among those three countries.
Romanian and Bulgarian presidents also stated that they appreciated Turkey's support to process of their countries' integration with the NATO.
The statement said the three leaders welcomed NATO Secretary General George Robertson's proposal for formation of a joint NATO-EU strategy for the Balkans.
The statement said that the leaders expressed their pleasure with the productive result of the first meeting of the interior ministers of Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria, which was held in Antalya in May in line with the agreement which those three countries signed in 1998 and foresaw cooperation in fight against terrorism, organized crimes, illegal arms, drug and human smuggling, money laundering and other crimes.
The three leaders who reiterated their ''strong commitments'' about fight against every kind of terrorism said they condemned murder of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Cincic.
The statement added that the next tripartite summit would be held in Bulgaria in 2004.
(MS-Öª) 04.06.2003