MOSCOW - Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday affirmed decisiveness to further improve and diversify cooperation between Turkey and Russia.
Sezer, the first Turkish President paying the first formal visit to Russia and Russian President Putin made a joint press conference following talks between the delegations of the two countries.
``Enhancement of multilateral partnership relations with Russia on basis of mutual interest and confidence is among the prior targets of the Turkish foreign policy,`` Sezer said.
``Cooperation in economy and trade, particularly in 1990`s formed the major boost of relations with Russian Federation. Recently intensified reciprocal high ranking visits and regular consultations further enhanced political dialogue between Turkey and Russia. This dialogue boosts mutual confidence and solidarity. Bilateral trade attained mutually targeted 15 billion USD in 2005. Investments by Turkish businessmen in Russia exceeded 3 billion USD. Total value of the works of Turkish undertakers exceeded 17 billion USD,`` Sezer indicated.
``Turkey gives high importance to cooperation with Russia in energy area,`` Sezer said, adding that cooperation in energy reached a strategic level thanks to ``Blue Stream`` natural gas pipeline.
``We intend to further improve collaboration with Russia in energy,`` Sezer said stating that Turkey attaches a special importance to cooperation with Russia for realization of Samsun-Ceyhan oil pipeline,``. Sezer stated.
Sezer said cooperation between Turkey and Russia also developed in culture and tourism, and remarked that, ``it has been decided to arrange `Russian Culture Year` in Turkey in 2007 and `Turkish Culture Year` in Russia in 2008.``
Sezer said various regional and international issues were assessed with Putin, emphasizing that, ``we have observed that our approaches towards the regional and international issues are close to each other in general. We are happy to see that the views on strengthening international peace, stability and cooperation are parallel.``
``Turkey and Russia are willing to improve cooperation. We have reaffirmed decisiveness to exert efforts to boost effectiveness of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization and its improvement with concrete drafts aiming to contribute to the prosperity of the whole region,`` Sezer said.
``Turkey also attaches importance to cooperation with Russia on security of the Black Sea. We believe that participation of Russia in Turkish Operation Black Sea Harmony will constitute a positive step for the joint efforts of Black Sea littoral countries to strengthen security in the Black Sea,`` Sezer said.
Sezer underscored that positive relations and developing cooperation between Turkey and Russia based on mutual confidence would contribute to the peace, prosperity and stability of whole region.
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Putin in his part indicated that many important international issues were reviewed during his meeting with Sezer, and added that, ``we have negotiated international and regional problems. However, Turkish-Russian bilateral relations were the most important topic of today`s talks.``
Putin said, ``we have reiterated the joint will to strengthen bilateral dialogue. We are intended to improve bilateral relations towards multilateral partnership in line with the joint political declaration signed in December 2004.``
Putin pointed out that Turkey ranked the 8th in Russia`s exports, and noted that, ``bilateral trade volume attained 15 billion USD at the end of 2005. We want to further improve this tendency. We particularly attach importance to investments. Russia`s investments in Turkish economy increased to 2 billion USD.``
``There are serious joint investment projects on our agenda,`` Putin said naming them as transportation, energy and chemical industry.
``We believe that there are serious cooperation opportunities in electric energy and particularly nuclear energy,`` Putin said and added that, ``we have attached necessary importance to cooperation in fight against terrorism. I would like to once again stress the importance of alliance of civilizations brought to agenda by Turkey and Spain. Serious cooperation will be in question between the peoples and institutions from various cultures and civilizations in fight against terrorism and excessiveness within the scope of this initiative. We have also discussed the Middle East problem, developments in Iraq and Iran`s nuclear program.``
``Russia advocates Turkey`s Operation Black Sea Harmony. We have provided procedures that will ensure full participation of Russia to this operation,`` he noted.