ANKARA, Jan 23 (A.A) - U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Robert Pearson said on Wednesday that they had concluded Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit's visit to the United States very successfully, adding that his country was pleased with that visit.
During his meeting with Parliament Speaker Omer Izgi, Pearson evaluated Ecevit's visit to the United States.
''We have successfully concluded Prime Minister Ecevit's visit. My country is pleased with this visit. Our political leaders have set an agenda which is very important for our two countries and our duty is to work hard to reach these goals,'' Pearson said.
When asked how he defined Ecevit's visit very successful as the U.S. side had not taken any concrete initiative in issues like textiles quotas and military debts, Pearson said, ''political leaders set an agenda and this agenda was about recovery and improvement of the climate of economic policies, investments and trade relations and at the same time it was about increase of these relations to the level of political and political-military relations. And opinions about this matter display our determination. These will constitute the basic resultants of our strategic relations and in the next phase, Turkey will become a country which has great competitive power and its trade relations with the United States will improve as long as its economy is relieved.''
''All textile quotas will be lifted by the year 2005 and actually fifty percent of quotas have already been lifted so far. Consequently, we are trying to bring Turkish companies to a position which will increase their competitive power until the year 2005 and later on by working with them,'' he said.
Responding a question about the agenda of the joint commission planned to be formed on economic relations between Turkey and the United States, Pearson said that the commission would convene in Ankara on February 26-27 and the U.S. side would be headed by Department of State Undersecretary Alan P. Larson for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs.
Noting that they were currently discussing about the agenda of the committee with the Turkish businessmen, ministries and government, Pearson said that as the U.S. side, they wanted to bring the issue of industry areas of high quality onto the agenda and that high technology production at those industry areas would be in question.
Stating that they were at the same time evaluating the investment environment, Pearson said that there were some specific problems that American investors were facing in Turkey.
''All of these issues may be brought onto the agenda. I hope that a concrete progress would be recorded but I cannot say what kind of matters the Turkish government should bring onto the agenda. I expect that there would be a productive and positive result,''. he said.
''Besides, we have focused on political and military-political dimensions of our relations for years but now we attribute more importance to economic matters. I suppose that concrete results would be obtained in the shortest possible time,'' Pearson added.
Izgi noted, ''according to our impressions, our relations have been developed since that day.''
They would debate what could be done from now on during their meeting, Izgi stated.
Izgi said that Pearson was an expert on Middle East politics and added that he was very important in this respect.
Pearson, in his part, said that he would take up the works of the parliament in the previous legislative term and the agenda of this legislative term.
When asked to express views on draft adjustment law, Pearson said that it would not be appropriate for him to make evaluation on draft laws that were being discussed at the parliament.
However, Pearson noted, the constitutional amendments adopted by the parliament in the former legislative term was welcomed by the whole world.
Pearson stated that they also considered those amendments as forward steps.
The adjustment laws which would put the constitutional amendments into practice were also of vital importance, Pearson said.
Pearson noted that they always stressed that Turkish people wanted to take more steps in democratic reforms and democratization.
Turkish people were making those amendments because they wanted them not because some others asked them to make them, Pearson stated.
Pearson said that this was also valid for their country, adding that they were also exerting efforts to continuously further improve democracy and to develop their system.