Unakitan Defines His Visit To Bulgaria As Positive

SOFIA - Finance Minister Kemal Unakitan defined on Thursday his visit to Bulgaria as positive.
Unakitan held meetings with Bulgarian President Georgi Purvanov, Parliament Speaker Ognyan Gercikov, members of Bulgarian-Turkish Parliamentary Friendship Group, and Deputy Prime Minister Lidiya Shuleva on the last day of his visit to Bulgaria.
Finance Minister Unakitan took up bilateral relations and developments in Iraq in his meeting with Bulgarian President Purvanov.
Unakitan said that Turkey and Bulgaria shared same views about Iraq.
Visiting Bulgarian Parliament, Unakitan said that he saw that there was strong political will to further improve bilateral relations.
Unakitan stated that trade volume between two countries exceeded one billion U.S. dollars in 2003 and reached 1.3 billion by the end of 2003.
Two countries would exert every effort to increase trade volume, Unakitan pointed out.
Unakitan said that two countries agreed to accelerate border transitions and noted that Bulgarian government took a decision on the issue a week ago and put the decision into practice.
Efforts continued to open a third border gate between the two countries, Unakitan added.
Unakitan took up initiatives to further improve economic relations in his meeting with Shuleva.
(BRC-Öª) 15.01.2004