Aksu: Turkey - Syria Relations Have Reached A Very Good Level

GAZIANTEP - Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu said on Friday that they attributed great importance to developing relations in every field, particularly commerce with neighboring countries and added, ''with this respect, Turkey-Syria relations have reached a very good level also in fight against terrorism besides commercial field.''
Speaking at a meeting at the Gaziantep Chamber of Industry Chamber, Aksu stressed that southeastern province of Gaziantep had a very significant position in development of Turkey-Syria relations.
Aksu said, ''Turkey-Syria relations have entered a big development process in recent years. Trade volume between the two countries is increasing. State Minister Kursad Tuzmen and a delegation comprising 220 businessmen are in Syria at the moment and they are launching initiatives to further increase the bilateral relations.''
Noting that Syria was also making cooperation with Turkey in fight against terrorism, Aksu said, ''we have opened a new page with our neighbor Syria by forgetting the negative events in the past. Because, we were very uneasy that the terrorist organization's head (Abdullah Ocalan) took shelter there in the past. Syria handed over more than forty terrorists from different organizations in the new process. It captured and handed over some terrorists who were proved to be in Syria after the bomb attacks in Istanbul. We even could not imagine this cooperation ten years ago.''
Aksu said that Turkey's fight against terrorism was understood better by many countries after September 11 attacks in the United States. He added, ''earlier many friendly countries were not cooperating with Turkey despite our insistence on fight against terrorism. On the contrary, they were aiding and abetting terrorist countries which were fighting against us. Many friendly European countries and especially the United States understood us better and focused on cooperation in fight against terrorism after the terrorist attacks which started in the world following the bomb attacks in the United States. These are pleasing developments. But, we wish that those relations would have started earlier and much blood would not have shed.''
(GC-MS) 05.03.2004