Turkey, Italy PMs agree to cooperate
Güncelleme Tarihi:
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Kasım 14, 2008 00:00
İZMİR -Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Italian counterpart Silvio Berlusconi have agreed to cooperate in the areas of energy and defense and on issues pertaining to regional hotspots such as the Caucasus and the Middle East.
The prime ministers met at the Turkish-Italian Intergovernmental Summit in İzmir late Wednesday. The annual summit is hosted by each country on a rotating basis in accordance with the "Strategic Document" signed between Italy and Turkey in 2007.
Along with this year’s agreements, plans were made for an Italian university in Istanbul.
Both prime ministers were joined in Izmir for the five-hour summit by six ministers from Turkey, five ministers from Italy and other high-level officials. While Erdoğan and Berlosconi had a one-on-one for 40 minutes, the two countries’ foreign ministers, defense ministers, transport ministers and ministers of the interior discussed projects for strategic cooperation. After the summit, both prime ministers attended a press conference on the results of the summit.
Erdoğan said: "We discussed what will do in the energy, security, terror, trade, transport and defense industries. We decided to take steps in all these issues quickly and put all these decisions into practice. We have seen that there was a common will on both sides concerning the issues."
Stating that Italy always was on the side of Turkey, Erdoğan said: "My first meeting as the prime minister was with my counterpart Silvio. Since that talk, they have been supporting us on the EU. I believe that we will continue this solidarity and cooperation, especially in Afghanistan and NATO, Kosovo, Lebanon. We had talks on both the Caucasus and Iran, Iraq, Syria, Palestinian, and Israel-Syrian relations and we discussed what jointly we can do on these issues."
Accelerate pipeline
Talking about cooperation in energy, Erdoğan said: "Turkey is not a supplier country in energy, but Turkey is in an important location for transit and consumption. We had talks on what we could do about this. We already took a step toward Turkish-Italian cooperation on the Samsun-Ceyhan pipeline."
"We have made an agreement on Atak helicopters with Italy," said Erdoğan. "Turkey will produce Atak helicopters. After four or five years we will have completed the test of the Atak helicopter. Only we will use these helicopters."
Italian Prime Minister Berlosconi also said the cooperation on energy and defense was at a good point, but there were lots of things to do to improve this cooperation.
"Thanks to the joint helicopter manufacture project, more than 50 helicopters will be ready to use in four years. This is a very important project," said the Italian prime minister.
"Turkey is a strategic bridge between Europe and natural gas and oil regions. Seventy percent of world energy reserves are east of Turkey’s borders, for that reason Italy has invested in the construction of pipelines in Turkey. Because of the importance of these projects, we opened the Baku-Tiflis-Ceyhan pipeline together with Prime Minister Erdoğan and President Putin. The projects we are planning for the future are more assertive," said Berlosconi.
Along with this year’s agreements, plans were made for an Italian university in Istanbul.
Both prime ministers were joined in Izmir for the five-hour summit by six ministers from Turkey, five ministers from Italy and other high-level officials. While Erdoğan and Berlosconi had a one-on-one for 40 minutes, the two countries’ foreign ministers, defense ministers, transport ministers and ministers of the interior discussed projects for strategic cooperation. After the summit, both prime ministers attended a press conference on the results of the summit.
Erdoğan said: "We discussed what will do in the energy, security, terror, trade, transport and defense industries. We decided to take steps in all these issues quickly and put all these decisions into practice. We have seen that there was a common will on both sides concerning the issues."
Stating that Italy always was on the side of Turkey, Erdoğan said: "My first meeting as the prime minister was with my counterpart Silvio. Since that talk, they have been supporting us on the EU. I believe that we will continue this solidarity and cooperation, especially in Afghanistan and NATO, Kosovo, Lebanon. We had talks on both the Caucasus and Iran, Iraq, Syria, Palestinian, and Israel-Syrian relations and we discussed what jointly we can do on these issues."
Accelerate pipeline
Talking about cooperation in energy, Erdoğan said: "Turkey is not a supplier country in energy, but Turkey is in an important location for transit and consumption. We had talks on what we could do about this. We already took a step toward Turkish-Italian cooperation on the Samsun-Ceyhan pipeline."
"We have made an agreement on Atak helicopters with Italy," said Erdoğan. "Turkey will produce Atak helicopters. After four or five years we will have completed the test of the Atak helicopter. Only we will use these helicopters."
Italian Prime Minister Berlosconi also said the cooperation on energy and defense was at a good point, but there were lots of things to do to improve this cooperation.
"Thanks to the joint helicopter manufacture project, more than 50 helicopters will be ready to use in four years. This is a very important project," said the Italian prime minister.
"Turkey is a strategic bridge between Europe and natural gas and oil regions. Seventy percent of world energy reserves are east of Turkey’s borders, for that reason Italy has invested in the construction of pipelines in Turkey. Because of the importance of these projects, we opened the Baku-Tiflis-Ceyhan pipeline together with Prime Minister Erdoğan and President Putin. The projects we are planning for the future are more assertive," said Berlosconi.