Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said yesterday that Turkey's attempt at mediating a peace agreement between Israel and Syria has been welcomed by many countries in the Islamic world, speaking at a meeting held by a leading organization of Islamic countries in Uganda, reported Turkish Daily News.
At the foreign ministers' meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference or OIC, Babacan argued that despite the recent progress in the Israeli-Syrian portion of the Middle East peace process, the situation with the Israeli-Palestinian side of the matter is still not at the desired level.
The foreign minister underlined that Turkey's role as a facilitator between Syria and Israel is quite significant and has helped mitigate the despair. He said a second round of indirect negotiations between Israeli and Syrian envoys was successfully concluded last week, and that the timetable for the third and fourth rounds has already been set.
In Luxembourg Tuesday for a European Union conference, Babacan said Syria and Israel would hold two more rounds of talks next month.
News reports had said earlier that the two days of discussions between the parties ended Monday in Turkey and involved Turkish mediators shuttling between a hotel containing a Syrian negotiating team and another housing Israeli envoys.
At the OIC meeting, Babacan said it was not yet clear whether he would attend a France-led meeting July 13 regarding the creation of a union for Mediterranean countries. The statements made by Babacan last week created confusion when he said Turkey may choose to remain completely outside the Union for the Mediterranean project.
Turkish secretary-general of the OIC, Professor Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, welcomed the new momentum in the peace process on the divided island of Cyprus, which began February when pro-reunification leader won elections in the south, and said the OIC gives its full support to the process.
Turkish-Cypriot Foreign Minister Turgay Avcı also attended the OIC meeting in Uganda. He was expected to engage in bilateral talks with other foreign ministers on the margins of the summit. Avcı said OIC members will make a decision regarding Turkish Cypriots at the summit.