MOSTAR - Presidency Chairman Sulejman Tihic of Bosnia-Herzegovina received on Friday Turkish state ministers Besir Atalay and Mehmet Aydin who attended the reopening of the ancient stone bridge of Mostar.
Later, the ministers were received by Bosnian Council of Ministers Chairman Adnan Terzic.
During the meetings, Tihic and Terzic pointed out that economic and commercial relations had been further improving between Turkey and Bosnia- Herzegovina, and called on Turkish businessmen to invest in their country.
Both Tihic and Terzic expressed their profound sorrow over loss of lives in the train crash in northwestern part of Turkey.
Noting that they wanted to be included in NATO and the EU, Tihic and Terzic asked Turkey to support Bosnia-Herzegovina to this end.
Following the meetings, the Turkish delegation including Atalay, Aydin, Public Works and Housing Minister Zeki Ergezen, Culture and Tourism Minister Erkan Mumcu, Agriculture and Rural Affairs Minister Sami Guclu and bureaucrats returned to Turkey.
During the visit, the delegation attended the reopening of the ancient stone bridge of Mostar.
The famous thirty-meter single-arched stone bridge of Mostar tumbled into the river on November 9, 1993, when Bosnian Croats blasted its sweeping arch with tank fire during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The bridge was built of limestone in 1566 according to the plans of Mimar Haireddin, a disciple of Sinan, the greatest architect of the Ottoman Empire.
Reconstruction works began in 1997, but the rebuilding of the 30-meter span got under way in earnest in June 2002, after workers extracted the scattered remnants from the riverbed.
The project cost 15 million U.S. dollars, much of which was donated by Turkey, the United States, Italy, the Netherlands and Croatia, as well as numerous organizations.
(UK-MS) 24.07.2004