Turkey and Russia put their initials on a memorandum of understanding regarding the working principles of the Turkish-Russian Social Forum on Friday, Anadolu Agency reported .
Co-chairs Sarik Tara and Konstantin Kosachev, Chair of the Duma Foreign Affairs Committee, initialed the memorandum in Istanbul on behalf of their countries.
The signing ceremony of the agreement is expected to take place in the Russian capital of Moscow in March.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will attend the ceremony.
Moreover, Turkish-Russian Social Forum's first joint board meeting was held with the participation of board members and committee heads from both countries, as well as members of the inter-parliamentary friendship group.
Speaking at a press conference held after the meeting, the forum's co-chair Sarik Tara said that bilateral trade between Turkey and Russia proceeded well, and the goal was to reach a trade volume of 100 billion USD by the year 2023.
Kosachev said in his part that the Turkish-Russian Social Forum would carry out activities on education, history, media, business environment, tourism, art & culture, sports, inter-religious dialogue and legal affairs.
During Russian President Medvedev's visit to Turkey in May 2010, officials agreed to establish a Social Forum that would work within the body of the High Level Cooperation Council between Turkey and Russia.
The forum, comprising of Turkish and Russian academicians, researchers, businesspeople, journalists, opinion leaders, artists and sportsmen, aims at bringing the nations and NGOs of the two countries closer.