ISTANBUL (AA) - Turkish State Minister and Chief Negotiator (for entry talks with EU) Ali Babacan said on Thursday that even if there were multidimensional relations between Turkey and the United States, those relations were not still at desired level.
Addressing a conference at Bogazici University upon the 20th anniversary of Turkish-American Business Council, Babacan said that the United States was ranked the fourth among the countries to which Turkey exported most of its goods (amounting to 1.48 billion USD) and the sixth from which Turkey imported most of its goods (amounting to 1.7 billion USD).
Babacan stressed that those figures were not sufficient when the total foreign trade figures and gross national products (GNP) of the two countries were taken into consideration.
Babacan remarked that the two countries acted together in many areas like economy, security, defense, energy, trade and regional cooperation, adding that the two countries also determined common policies and strategies.
Babacan underlined that the two countries had also assumed responsibilities in the Balkans, the Middle East, Iraq, Afghanistan and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
''Yet we must have a deeper cooperation with the United States in other areas like defense, cooperation against terrorism and security. Both Turkish and American peoples should know that terrorism doesn't make any discrimination in respect of religion, language, race and nationality. No country in the world is immune from terrorism or terrorism threat, so cooperation among countries should be enhanced to fight not only with terrorism but with other threats against the world like organized crimes, weapons of mass destruction and drug smuggling,'' Babacan said.
(֓-MS)
2005-06-02