LONDON: Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan received on Saturday Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, the UAE’s minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation, in Istanbul, the state news agency WAM reported.
The two discussed the prospects of advancing cooperation between Turkey and the UAE across all fields and discussed regional issues and the importance of enhancing efforts to establish peace, security and stability.
The Ukrainian crisis and global developments were also discussed.
The UAE’s foreign affairs minister visited his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu and explored avenues of cooperation between the countries and prospects to advance relations.
Sheikh Abdullah and Cavusoglu addressed the latest global developments, including those relevant to the stability of energy supplies and food markets in the world, and the global efforts made to reach a political settlement to the crisis in Ukraine.
The UAE’s top diplomat stressed that Emirati-Turkish relations were steadily growing and evolving, and both leaderships were determined to establish a sustainable model of a win-win partnership.
In their joint news conference, Sheikh Abdullah said: “I hope that we can work together to finalize the trade partnership agreement between our countries, whereby we can double our trade exchanges.”
Sheikh Abdullah highlighted renewable energy as one of the sectors where both nations were interested in strengthening their bilateral relations.
“This sector is not only successful from a commercial point of view, but is also consequential to our countries that are both working toward reducing carbon emissions in the world.”
Sheikh Abdullah praised the increase in the volume of trade between the two countries to about AED50 billion. “We have achieved an 82 percent growth in trade exchanges within two years,” he said.
Cavusoglu said that the talks with Sheikh Abdullah touched on many issues related to collaboration in sectors such as trade, economy, technology and energy, stressing that the UAE was Turkey’s largest trade partner in the region.
He indicated that Turkish investors were keen to increase their investment in the UAE.
In response to a question about the future of relations between the two countries, Sheikh Abdullah said: “We talked about some ideas, especially with regards to renewable, solar and electric energy. One of the world’s key companies working in this field today, namely the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar), is highly interested in seeking business opportunities in Turkey.”
He added that Turkey had great potential in the field of tourism.
“Our interest is not only focused on working in Turkey, but also working with Turkey in other parts of the world, including Africa, Latin America, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia.”
On his recent visit to Israel, Cavusoglu said that dialogue was necessary and fruitful. “Differences might exist, but severing relations is not good. We have conveyed the message to our Palestinian brothers as well as to the Israelis; and we will work to take additional steps in collaboration with Egypt in this regard.”
Sheikh Abdullah said: “There is no doubt that encouraging a return to the peace process and dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis is extremely important.”
He said that Turkey was making efforts on the stability of Libya. “With regards to Yemen, we have expressed our full solidarity with the UAE and Saudi Arabia following the terrorist attacks on the two countries.”
