4th February 2013

Laying a wreath at the memorial of Turkish Republic’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and meeting with President Abdullah Gul, President Tomislav Nikolic, today, started his official visit to the Republic of Turkey.

Presidents of Serbia and Turkey, Tomislav Nikolic and Abdullah Gul, said in Ankara that the time has come for Serbia and Turkey to intensify mutual cooperation to the last atom, and speaking of Turkish investments in Serbia, announced a real investment boom.

Behind closed doors, Presidents Nikolic and Gul in Ankara discussed economic cooperation, Turkey investment in infrastructure projects in Serbia, but also the Turkey's influence on the stability in the Balkans.

Speaking of investments, President Gul said that concrete steps for promotion cooperation has already been made and that progress was visible immediately after the signing of the Free trade agreement, but also added that the Turkish and Serbian companies are working on the project to build a highway through Serbia, on Corridor 11, to the Adriatic Sea.
There will be an economic boom and an explosion in future period. Expect more intensive economic cooperation, said Gul.

Gul said he has already noticed that the scope of economic cooperation increased.  

He personally invited all Turkish investors interested in investing in Serbia to make investments.
I personally encourage them to invest and I say that all this will take a part in development that will contribute to the development of our bilateral relations, Gul pointed out. Gul stressed that, although Serbia and Turkey do not have a common border, they consider Serbia their close neighbors.

President Nikolic said that he and his Turkish counterpart agreed that both of them will be partially satisfied when the trade exchange reached one billion euros. He added that Serbia is open for Turkish investments, for coming of great Turkish companies to Serbia, infrastructure development, giving concessions to electricity production. "Our friendship is much larger than our economic exchanges. Maybe, it's better this way. It is better that friendship produces economic exchange, than economic exchange produces friendship, underlined Nikolic.

Answering the questions of reporters, the two presidents also spoke about efforts of their countries to integrate into the EU, emphasizing that this is a common goal for Serbia and Turkey. President Nikolic said he believes that his and Gul's duty to their states is to arrange this, and after that, membership in the EU does not depend only on them.

The Serbian President, today in Ankara, announced that the trilateral meeting Serbia, Turkey and Bosnia and Herzegovina should be held in May in Ankara.

After the meeting with Turkish President Abdullah Gul, Nikolic said that Serbia did accept that initiative by the first man of Turkey. "We support Turkey's initiative for holding top-level meeting between Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Turkey. President Gul, as the host, suggested the month of May in Ankara and we accepted that, Nikolic concluded.

After a tet-a-tet meeting of the two presidents, was held a meeting of delegations of Serbia and Turkey, and afterwards the Minister of Youth and Sports, Alisa Maric and Suat Kilic, sign the agreement between the two governments in the field of youth and sports.

After talks at the presidential palace, President Tomslav Nikolic and members of Serbian delegation had a working lunch with the President of the Turkish Grand National Assembly, Cemil Cicek. Turkish Parliament Speaker considered that Serbia is the key country in the Balkans, as well as improvement of relations between Serbia and Turkey is an important element of stability and prosperity of the entire region.
It was estimated that intensive political dialogue between Serbia and Turkey, accompanied by a good parliamentary cooperation as an important segment of the overall improvement of bilateral relations between the two countries.

President Nikolic, at the presidential palace, was greeted with the highest state and military honors, an honor guard and a 21-gun salute. National anthems of these two countries were played.