FIRST STATE VISIT TO TURKEY TO BEGIN

Swissinfo
Nov 7 2008
Switzerland

Swiss President, Pascal Couchepin, begins an official visit to Turkey
today – the first ever visit to Turkey by a Swiss president.

It is the second visit in a week to Turkey by a Swiss government
minister and represents an improvement of relations between the
two countries.

Couchepin – Switzerland’s interior minister who holds the rotating
Swiss presidency this year – will meet President Abdullah Gul and
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan during his four-day visit.

They will discuss political, cultural and economic relations including
energy issues since Turkey is a transit country for oil and gas
supplies to Europe, the Swiss interior ministry said in a statement.

Relations between the two nations have been soured over disagreements
about whether the killing of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in
1917 amounted to genocide.

Signs of a thaw came in September, when Foreign Minister Micheline
Calmy-Rey and her Turkish counterpart, Ali Babacan, signed a memorandum
of understanding in Bern to strengthen ties.

Calmy-Rey also held talks with Babacan last week in Istanbul on the
sidelines of a regional meeting of the World Economic Forum.

Economics Minister Doris Leuthard is due to travel to Turkey later
this month and is expected to discuss the state of progress of the
oil and gas pipelines.