Istanbul hosted the first meeting of the Turkish-Russian Common Strategic Planning Group

Azerbaijan, Baku, Jan. 21 /Trend, I.Huseynov/

On Thursday, Jan. 20, Istanbul hosted the first meeting of the Common Strategic Planning Group under chairmanship of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Russian Foreign Ministry's website reported.  

Common Strategic Planning Group is the mechanism to discuss the international agenda in the framework of the High-level Cooperation Council, headed by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The main issue of the talks was preparation of the second meeting of the Russian-Turkish High-level Cooperation Council.

The foreign ministers also "compare notes" on the most issues of international and regional agenda, including European security, the Middle East peace, Iran's nuclear program, the situation in Iraq, the situation in the Balkans and the Caucasus, Russian Foreign Ministry said in the statement.

The rapid development of multifaceted cooperation between Russia and Turkey, the output of the Russian-Turkish relations at the level of strategic partnership were also noted by the sides at the meeting.

The ministers discussed issues of trade and economic cooperation, including cooperation in the energy sector in the context of the implementation of major joint projects (construction of nuclear power "Akkuyu", the "South Stream" gas pipeline and the "Samsun-Ceyhan" oil pipeline).

According to the statement, the sides had noted the similarity or coincidence of views on many key international issues and reaffirmed their mutual interest in further expansion of cooperation.

The ministers signed a protocol of a meeting of the Group, defining the key areas and modalities of its work.