TURKISH PM PLEASED WITH VISIT TO MOSCOW

ITAR-TASS
Jan 14 2010
Russia

ANKARA, January 14 (Itar-Tass) –Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan
has praised the results of his visit to Russia and described the
talks he had held there as effective and bringing good results. He
spoke about it upon his return to Ankara from Moscow.

He pointed to the readiness of the negotiating parties to facilitate
the visa regime. "Our proposal to lift visa barriers between the
two countries was most important. Both President Dmitry Medvedev and
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin responded positively to the proposal,"
Erdogan said. According to his information, the corresponding agencies
in Russia and Turkey were given the needed instructions and started
the work, aimed at facilitating the visa regime. Turkey believes that
a final agreement on the cancellation of visas may be signed early
in summer, within the framework of a meeting of the Russian-Turkish
Business Council in Istanbul. Turkey regards the lifting of the visa
regime as an important indication of solid relations with the neighbour
country. Ankara signed recently the agreements on the lifting of the
visa restrictions with Azerbaijan and Lebanon.

On the whole, Erdogan described his talks with the Russian leaders
as "comprehensive and most effective." "We discussed in detail the
prospects of our cooperation in the sphere of energy. We are working
on the design of the Samsun-Ceyhan oil pipeline. We have made major
steps in the sphere of nuclear power engineering. Work is going on
in those directions, and we could evaluate its progress during the
talks," he said.

According to his information, Russian-Turkish trade turnover may be
reduced by 40 per cent as a result of the world financial crisis.

"Since a new period of growth begins, we set ourselves the task of
bringing trade turnover to 100 billion dollars within the coming five
years. Both parties are determined to reach that target. We shall step
up work in many directions of our cooperation, in order to put our
plans into effect," Erdogan said. He added that during the visit he had
had a chance to discuss in detail some regional problems, specifically,
"the situation in the Caucasus, Armenian-Turkish relations, Azerbaijan
and the Cyprus problem."

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress