ANKARA, March 8 (A.A) - President Ahmet Necdet Sezer completed his official visit to Slovakia and Czech Republic and returned to the country on Friday.
Speaking at Esenboga Airport, President Sezer said that Turkey supported NATO's open door policy and believed that the accession of candidate countries which fulfilled the necessary conditions to NATO would strengthen the alliance.
Noting that he met with Slovakian and Czech Presidents, parliament speakers, prime ministers and other high ranking officials during his visit, Sezer said that they particularly focused on bilateral relations.
Sezer stressed that the sides expressed pleasure over the non-existance of any political problem in bilateral relations which develop in a way that serves the common interests.
''We determined that we have common resolution with both countries to further improve our relations and cooperation. We also assessed commercial and economic cooperation in our meetings. We also had the opportunity to participate in Turkey-Slovakia and Turkey-Czech Republic business council meetings and to meet with businessmen. We have once again seen the need to regulary hold such meetings in order to improve the economic cooperation,'' Sezer said.
Sezer said that he had the opportunity to monitor and get information about the studies of Slovakia to integrate with Europe Atlantic institutions, adding that he told that Turkey supported NATO's open door policy and believed that the accession of candidate countries which fulfilled the necessary conditions to NATO would strengthen the alliance.
Sezer said that they focused on the importance of alliance solidarity in Cezch Republic, which is a NATO member since 1990, adding that ''we stressed that the full membership process of Turkey, Slovakia and Czech Republic to EU necessitated protection of solidarity and cooperation among our countries and that such a cooperation would strengthen our full membership efforts. We exchanged views about regional and international problems which closely concern Turkey. We saw that we have similarities in our approaches to these issues. We stressed the importance Turkey attributed to international cooperation in fight with terrorism and voiced the need to increase common efforts both at international and national levels.''
Sezer added that his visit to Slovakia and Czech Republic was very beneficial and he believed it would speed up the development of relations with these countries.