Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has congratulated French president-elect Francois Hollande on his electoral victory, Today's Zaman reported.
Prime Ministry sources said Erdogan called Hollande and congratulated him for his success, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported.
Socialist candidate Hollande won the second round of the French presidential elections by garnering 52 percent of the vote. He is expected to take over the office from outgoing President Nicolas Sarkozy on May 15.
The 57-year-old Hollande started his political career as an adviser to Francois Mitterrand, who served as the president of France between 1981 and 1995. Hollande, who supported the bill that makes it a crime to deny the World War I-era killings of Armenians constituted a genocide, is opposed to Turkey's EU membership bid.
Erdogan told Hollande that France is among the countries which Turkey attaches importance to and that he feels hopeful about relations between the two countries during Hollande's term.
The Turkish prime minister also told Hollande that he believes relations between Turkey and France will be rescued from what he called "artificial problems" that are not in line with their shared history.
In turn, Hollande told Erdogan that he also thinks bilateral relations with Turkey are important and that both countries are in sync on many international issues. He added that France wants to have good relations with Turkey, which he said is an emerging economic power.
Erdogan also wished France's president-elect success in the upcoming parliamentary elections.
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