DAMASCUS - Turkish Parliament Speaker Bulent Arinc said that President Bashar al-Assad of Syria and he shared concern that new plans on the region would bring new problems.
President al-Assad of Syria received on Thursday Turkish Parliament Speaker Arinc.
Following his meeting with al-Assad, Arinc told reporters that al-Assad's visit to Turkey in January was a turning point in bilateral relations between the two countries and noted that al-Assad told him that they wanted to make cooperation in every field with Turkey.
Arinc stated that they discussed issues on the Middle East and Iraq, stressing that they saw that Turkey and Syria had similar expectations and concerns over those issues.
Replying to a question on his call for Middle East countries at Syrian People's Assembly on Wednesday, Arinc said, ''I delivered a speech in a session with participation of about one hundred deputies on Wednesday and answered their questions. Iraq is a neighbor country of both Turkey and Syria. Developments in Iraq upset all of us. Iraq has turned into a hell. Provision of tranquility in Iraq means provision of tranquility in the region. Iraq should have civilian and democratic structure as soon as possible. We have some concerns and Turkey and Syria share those concerns. We discussed projects that we didn't know what they would bring to the region. Syrian President and I shared concern that new plans on the region would bring new problems. All officials in Syria talk about the decision that Turkey took on March 1, 2003 with praise.''
Arinc said that relations between Turkey and Syria were very developed and added that they have reached this point by the foresighted views of the administrators of the country and if this closeness was not provided, cold relations with Syria would have continued.
Noting that he expressed the issues, on which Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul had focused, in Syrian People's Assembly as well, Arinc said, ''let's make better things for democratization, will of people and supremacy of the Parliament.''
Arinc said that he has received positive response to his message.
When a reporter asked, ''will Syria be the target of the United States from now on? Did Syria express its concerns about this issue?'' Arinc recalled that U.S. officials did not make any statements on this issue. Noting that there were some discussions among circles close to U.S. administration prior to the operation against Iraq that some countries were under threat and some projects were put forth, Arinc said that however those could not mean that one country has become the target of the other.
Noting that it was not possible for a politician to tell that it would be another country's turn after Iraq, Arinc said, ''however, this concern is shared in the whole Middle East. We have not made a direct meeting on these issues.''
Upon another question, Arinc said that Turkey and Syria had cold relations in the past and he added that nearly no problems left between two countries after the steps which were taken after 1998.
While giving information about his meeting with Al-Assad, Arinc said that they discussed the issues of opening high schools and academies in two countries mutually and completing free trade agreement soon.
Al-Assad stressed the importance of Turkish banking sector's making investments in Syria and said that he wanted to see important Turkish banks in Syria and added that he would provide every facility for the investments they would make.
(EÖ-GC-AÖ) 08.04.2004