ANKARA - Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan left for Belgrade on Tuesday to attend the summit meeting of the heads of state and government of Southeast European Countries Cooperation Process.
Prior to his departure, Erdogan told reporters that the process, which accepted bringing solutions to problems by political dialogue and common will as fundamental principle, gained a more critical importance with respect to protection of peace and stability in Balkans.
Erdogan said that he was going to Belgrade with Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Gul and accompanying delegation.
Stating that Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia-Montenegro, Romania will attend the meeting and Croatia will also participate in the meeting as observer and Moldova as special guest, he said that activities of the process would be taken up at the summit.
Erdogan said that Bosnia-Herzegovina would take over term presidency from Serbia-Montenegro at the summit.
''Turkey made important contributions in formation and development of the Balkan cooperation process. The process is Balkan cooperation forum covering common will of the region stemming from experiences acquired by similar initiatives in 1930s, 1950s and 1980s,'' he stated.
Erdogan added that the Belgrade summit would also be an opportunity for him and Gul to hold bilateral meetings with their counterparts in the participating countries.
Prior to his departure for Belgrade, Erdogan answered questions of reporters.
When asked what kind of a result was expected from his meetings with the Greek Prime Minister and Foreign Minister during the summit meeting in Belgrade, Erdogan said that as they had previously announced that they wished they would ''hold those meetings with good will''.
''I believe that it would be a positive step for the future. It is a positive initiative and the intention is sincere. We wish that its result would also be positive,'' he said.
When recalled of rumors about a new appointment at the Undersecretariat of Treasury, Erdogan said, ''at the moment, there is not anything that became clear.''
When asked about developments regarding an agreement which considers the Denominational Vision a terrorist organization, Erdogan said, ''first of all, it is an expression which contradicts with the definition of terrorism. Such a terrorist organization expression is not mentioned in any bilateral agreement. Foreign Minister Mr. Abdullah Gul made necessary remarks on the issue yesterday and he said that it was not like this.''
When asked what he thought about the coalition soldiers' attacks on places where journalists and civilians stay, Erdogan said, ''it is impossible for us to approve of bombing of such settlements and places where children, women, defenseless people, civilians live. We discussed all aspects of it in the past, and we expressed our opinions to the U.S. authorities. We still have the same opinions. Besides, several incidents which can't be approved happened in a hospital. It is impossible to agree on these incidents. We wish that such incidents would not happen. At the point of humanitarian aid, we are going to send our trucks mostly laden with medicine to Iraq through our Red Crescent.''
When asked about Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's letter to him requesting help regarding GSM operator Aria, Erdogan said, ''I have not received any letter about this issue. However, I know about the issue. Together with relevant officials, we are working on it, and we will solve the issue.''

(MS-AÖ) 08.04.2003