Sezer Meets With His Slovakian Counterpart

ANKARA - President Ahmet Necdet Sezer met on Tuesday with Slovakian President Rudolf Schuster, who is paying an official visit to Turkey.
Following their tete-a-tete meeting, two presidents headed the meetings between delegations of two countries. Sezer and Schuster later made a joint press statement.
President Sezer said that they had a ''sincere and constructive'' meeting and expressed pleasure that there were not any problems between two countries and bilateral relations were gradually improving.
Sezer noted that they took up bilateral relations, improvement of relations, economic and commercial relations and recent regional and international developments in their meeting.
They expressed determination to increase their efforts, Sezer stated.
Sezer drew attention to similarities between foreign policies of Turkey and Slovakia on many issues.
Turkey had supported Slovakia's NATO membership from the outset, Sezer recalled.
Sezer said that they wanted Slovakia to benefit from Turkey's experiences in NATO.
He told his Slovakian counterpart that it would be beneficial for Turkey to make use of experiences of Slovakia, which would join the European Union (EU) in May 2004, in accession negotiations, Sezer stated.
Sezer said that Schuster's visit once more confirmed the will to further improve bilateral relations and expressed belief that this visit would contribute to promotion of cooperation between two countries.
Schuster said that their meeting was ''very frank'' and stated that bilateral relations were developing.
Drawing attention to improvement of economic and commercial cooperation, Schuster said that delegations of businessmen would reciprocally hold meetings and strong economic and commercial relations would be established.
Thanking Turkey for its support to Slovakia's NATO membership, Schuster expressed pleasure with that membership which would be granted in the following year.
Schuster reiterated his support to Turkey's EU membership and said that they wanted Turkey to make use of their own experiences.
Slovakia's EU membership path was a thorny road, not a direct road like that of some EU members, Schuster said.
Schuster expressed sorrow over terrorist attacks in Istanbul and added that such attacks showed the need for international cooperation.
(BRC-AÖ) 16.12.2003