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The good and warm relations between Iraq and Turkey since more than a year were positively reflected by the visit of the Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Eurdogan who arrived to Baghdad Thursday morning with 9 ministers and 48 memorandum of understanding aiming at boosting political and economic cooperation with Iraq in sundry fields. The memorandums of understanding encompass the following fields; security, water, opening passages, oil, electricity union, health, railways and agriculture.
The visit started at Baghdad International airport where Iraqi PremierNouri Al Maliki received Eurdogan with a ministerial delegation. Afterwards, Eurdogan’s tour on Iraqi officials started by visiting government vice Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi with whom he discussed bilateral relations, then he met with Al Maliki. After the meeting Maliki held a press conference and stressed on the importance of balanced relations between the two countries without meddling in each other’s internal issues.
Eurdogan stressed that he agreed with the central government on fighting against PKK for being a terrorist organization that threatens the two countries, Turkish PM said. To that, Eurdogan talked about economic relations pointing out that he decided to pump 550 cubic meters per second to Iraq. However, Eurdogan said that Ankara is not ready to carry on pumping water with the same average as now and added that Iraq, Turkey and Syria shall meet in order to talk over this issue.
On the other hand, Eurdogan stressed on the importance of economic cooperation adding that the volume of trade exchange between the two countries is about 5 billion dollars and shall be increased soon to 20 billions.
On the sidelines of the meeting, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiar Zebari met with his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu and said that the Iraqi and Turkish parties reached a comprehensive agreement regarding all the services sectors in a way that serves the interests of both countries.
Zebari said that signing these agreements is a step forward towards better relations which serves the interests of Iraqi and Turkish people and brings in benefits to all the sectors and Ministries in the two countries.
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