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Black Sea foreign ministers gather in Moscow

Iran Materials 3 November 2006 13:35 (UTC +04:00)

(turkishdaylynews) - Foreign ministers of the 12 member states of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) are gathering in Moscow today ahead of a meeting at which they will adopt far-reaching plans to change the way people live and work in the region.

The organization's two biggest projects share the common goal of changing the face of trade, transport and tourism in the region; the first is a road network encircling the Black Sea to facilitate truck traffic and travel, and second, a system of port and ferry links that would enable transporters to cut road time, reports Trend.

Foreign Minister Abdullah GГјl will represent Turkey at the two-day BSEC meeting, scheduled to begin tomorrow in Moscow and hosted by his counterpart, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Aside from adopting the memoranda concerning the infrastructure projects, ministers also will consider taking steps to enhance BSEC's relations with the European Union, BSEC Secretary-General Ambassador Leonidas Chrysanthopoulos said on Monday.

Chrysanthopoulos, attending with BSEC First Deputy Secretary-General Murat Sungar and Deputy Secretary-General Andrei Urnov, said the organization had received positive messages from Brussels on the subject of enhanced cooperation.

The EU is already cooperating closely on the road project, a 7,000-kilometer ring-road around the Black Sea, and also on the plan to coordinate a network of links and cooperation among ports on the Black, Caspian and Mediterranean seas.

The ports project, under the so-called Motorways of the Sea memorandum, represents an easier undertaking than the roads project and will take less time to implement, perhaps two years, compared to up to six years to complete the highway. BSEC will build no new roads; rather it will be up to each member state to make its section of the highway meet EU safety and quality standards.

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