ANKARA - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan returned to Turkey after paying an official visit to Bulgaria on Wednesday.
Erdogan attended foundation-laying ceremony of a factory of Turkish glass producer company Sisecam in Targovishte city of Bulgaria.
Speaking to reporters at Ankara`s Esenboga Airport, Erdogan said that they had had the opportunity of evaluating relations between Turkey and Bulgaria and developments in the region.
Noting that the Bulgarian coalition government was formed by two liberal parties, Erdogan said, ``one of them is the Rights and Freedoms Movement. It is a political movement which is formed mostly by our kinsmen and represents them. We had a meeting with them today and we had opportunity of evaluating the efforts and studies they have been conducting in a quite positive way with the other party as they share the same liberal thought. However, we also assessed that the coalition could serve Bulgaria better in the future if the existing unity and solidarity of the coalition and its understanding of embracing whole Bulgaria continue.``
Erdogan said that Turkey had nearly 1.3 billion U.S. dollars trade volume with Bulgaria as of the end of 2003 and the factory of Sisecam of which foundation was laid early the same day was an investment of 160 million U.S. dollars.
Erdogan said that construction of the factory would be completed in 1.5 years, 700 people would be employed and 85 percent of production would be exported.
Recalling that he had met the Bulgarian Parliament Speaker, Erdogan said that they had discussed enhancement of interparliamentary meetings and agreed that improvement of other bilateral relations would cause very beneficial developments between the two countries.
``I clearly explained several problems to the Bulgarian Prime Minister and they told us they have similar problems. We had a positive point of view towards restoration of both Ottoman Turkish cultural works in Bulgaria and Bulgarian historical cultural works in Turkey through reciprocal assistance and solidarity. We wish that we would take necessary steps rapidly,`` he said.
(MS) 07.07.2004