Islamabad and Ankara agree to transform ties into strategic economic partnership as Turkish President Erdogan visits Pakistan
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan successfully completed his two-day trip to Pakistan on Friday to strengthen bilateral strategic partnership and economic ties.
Prime Minister Imran Khan personally welcomed the Turkish President at the Nur Khan Airbase. He was later presented a guard of honor at Prime Minister House.
President Erdogan and First Lady Emine Erdogan held a meeting with President Arif Alvi at the Aiwan-i-Sadr.
On Friday, Erdogan addressed a joint session of Parliament and also spoke at the Pakistan-Turkey Business and Investment Forum. He later held a one-on-one meeting with Prime Minister Imran and co-chaired a meeting of the Pakistan-Turkey High Level Strategic Cooperation Council.
“Turkey is ready to provide all support in transport, energy, tourism, healthcare, education, and law enforcement, which will help in socio-economic development of Pakistan” Mr Erdogan vowed.
Erdogan offers all-out support to Pakistan on Kashmir, FATF
The issue of Kashmir is as important to Turkey as it is to Pakistan, the Turkish President said on Friday while addressing a joint session of Pakistan’s parliament. He thanked Pakistan for always standing beside Turkey in difficult times and said that Turkey has not forgotten the Pakistani people’s help during the Turkish War of Independence.
“And now, we feel the same about Kashmir today. It was Çanakkale yesterday and Kashmir today; there is no difference between the two” he said. He also mentioned that Turkey raised the Kashmir issue and the suffering of the Kashmiri people at the U.N. General Assembly last September.
“We will also back the friendly country at the FATF,” he said in his fourth address to the joint sitting of parliament.
Pakistan, Turkey agree on $5b trade roadmap
The two sides signed 13 memorandums of understandings (MoUs) including a joint declaration after the sixth meeting of the High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council (HLSCC), importantly approved a Strategic Economic Framework (SEF) and an accompanying elaborate plan of action to implement the new vision for the ties.
The agreements and MoUs were signed in the fields of trade, energy, defense, tourism, and infrastructure development to boost existing bilateral ties.
The council aims at realizing the target of enhancing bilateral trade to $5 billion by 2023 from the current $800 million. The two countries will hold further negotiations to finalize a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in April.
The MoUs signed by the two governments relates to fields of:
- Standardization, conformity assessment, metrology and training
- Military training
- Diaspora policy
- Media
- Railways and postal services
- Development and facilitation of tourism
- Halal accreditation
- Trade facilitation and customs cooperation matters