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Turkey looking for way to east through Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan Materials 17 April 2015 23:30 (UTC +04:00)
The visit of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Astana ends today. During the three days of the visit of the Turkish delegation headed by the president to Kazakhstan, the sides reached a series of agreements, signed multi-million dollar contracts and once again confirmed the long-known fact that Kazakhstan and Turkey have friendly, successful and mutually beneficial relationship
Turkey looking for way to east through Kazakhstan

Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr. 17

By Elena Kosolapova - Trend:

The visit of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Astana ends today. During the three days of the visit of the Turkish delegation headed by the president to Kazakhstan, the sides reached a series of agreements, signed multi-million dollar contracts and once again confirmed the long-known fact that Kazakhstan and Turkey have friendly, successful and mutually beneficial relationship.

The presidents of the both countries within the framework of bilateral meetings in the narrow and expanded format repeatedly emphasized that Kazakhstan and Turkey are brotherly countries, the most important allies, there are close historical and cultural ties among them and cooperation has good prospects for further development. Nursultan Nazarbayev and Recep Tayyip Erdogan exchanged compliments regarding the policy and economic progress of their countries.

Given the fact that the visit takes place just 10 days before the presidential election in Kazakhstan, such estimates by Erdogan may well be assessed as support for the candidacy of Nazarbayev for the next presidential term.

In addition, the parties reaffirmed the intention to increase the bilateral trade to $10 billion from the current $3.5 billion during the coming years. And a successful step in this direction was immediately made - business representatives of the two countries signed agreements on 19 projects worth more than $800 million within the framework of the Kazakh-Turkish business forum with participation of the presidents.

The agreements envisage the construction of plants for production of aluminum radiators, window and door accessories, waterproofing and roofing materials, steel pipes, and several types of concrete. These agreements are also aimed at developing commercial and military shipbuilding, ship repair and maritime transport. In addition, it was said that Kazakhstan and Turkey intend to implement joint economic projects in several other countries.

More than 1,600 companies with Turkish capital already operate in Kazakhstan. And the new customer contracts give hope to expect that their number will grow rapidly.

One of the important issues discussed during the visit was the development of transport cooperation. Given the geographical location of both countries and their mutual desire to develop transit potential, this area has great potential for strengthening ties. For Turkey, Kazakhstan can become a gateway to Central Asia, China and South-East Asia and the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union and Turkey can help with the transportation of Central Asian energy resources to Europe.

The presidents of the two countries once again confirmed that they have similar positions on a number of international issues and support each other in international organizations. Erdogan said that a number of political issues was discussed during his meeting with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, among which were the crises in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and the political crisis in Ukraine. Ankara and Astana come out with a unified position on the settlement of military conflicts, according to the president.

The president said that Ankara would support the candidacy of Astana at the election to the non-permanent members of the UN Security Council, which will be held in 2016 and expressed hope that the negotiations on Kazakhstan's joining the World Trade Organization will be completed in the near future.

Thus, Erdogan's visit to Kazakhstan has once again confirmed the obvious fact: the relationships between the two countries are at a high level, and their intensity will only grow.

Edited by CN

Elena Kosolapova is Trend Agency's staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @E_Kosolapova

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