Kazakh Foreign Minister begins his official visit to Turkey

Ankara, March 18, 2021 – At the invitation of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey, Mevlut Cavusoglu, Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan Mukhtar Tileuberdi arrived in Ankara on an official visit.

During the visit, Mr. Tileuberdi was received by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Minister extended the invitation of the First President of Kazakhstan, Leader of the Nation Nursultan Nazarbayev, to attend the informal Summit of the Cooperation Council of Turkic-Speaking States, which will be held on March 31 this year in Turkistan. The Head of Turkey also received a personal message from the President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.

During the visit to Ankara, the 6th meeting of the Joint Strategic Planning Group was held under the chairmanship of the foreign ministers of the two countries. During the event, the parties discussed priority issues of bilateral relations on the agenda. In particular, the parties discussed ways to further develop political, trade and economic, transport and logistics, cultural and humanitarian cooperation.

In his speech, Mr. Tileuberdi noted that Turkey is an important, strategic and reliable partner of Kazakhstan on the Eurasian continent. "We are gratified to see the consistently high level of bilateral cooperation between Kazakhstan and Turkey. The unshakable friendship between our fraternal peoples and the established political dialogue at the highest level provide a full opportunity to deepen our mutually beneficial strategic partnership," the Kazakh Foreign Minister said.

Mr. Cavosuglu, in turn, stressed that the Kazakh-Turkish cooperation is firmly grounded in strong economic ties, which need to be strengthened using all the available potential. The Turkish Minister also added that Kazakhstan is "the ancestral homeland of all Turkic peoples" and Turkey attaches great importance to the spiritual ties between our peoples.

The parties expressed deep satisfaction with the pace of development of cooperation between Kazakhstan and Turkey, emphasizing the mutual desire to further strengthen partnership in bilateral and multilateral formats. They noted the increased role of Nur-Sultan and Ankara in regional and global politics, as well as the authority of the two countries in the Turkic world.

This year, Kazakhstan celebrates the 30th anniversary of its Independence, and Turkey was one of the first to recognize our independence in the international arena. Next year, Kazakhstan and Turkey will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations. Over the years, bilateral cooperation between the two countries has reached the level of a strategic partnership. Kazakhstan and Turkey closely cooperate on bilateral, regional and international platforms.

The successful cooperation in the trade, economic and investment spheres was particularly noted. Despite the coronavirus pandemic, the bilateral trade turnover by the end of 2020 exceeded 3 billion US dollars and the parties intend to increase this figure to 10 billion US dollars.

At the end of the meeting, the Foreign Ministers of Kazakhstan and Turkey expressed their intention to maintain the dialogue and address consistently all issues of bilateral relations on the basis of a strategic partnership.

On the same day, the Minister of Finance of Kazakhstan held a meeting with the Vice-President of Turkey, Fuat Oktay. The parties discussed the preparations for the next 12th meeting of the intergovernmental commission, co-chaired by the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, Askar Mamin and Fuat Oktay.