Georgia’s PM meets his Turkish counterpart in Ankara
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Thursday, July 21
Georgia’s Prime Minister, Giorgi Kvirikashvili - who paid his first official visit to Turkey since last week’s coup attempt in the country - met his Turkish counterpart Binali Yildirim.
At the meeting, Kvirikashvili stressed that “Georgia supports Turkey’s democratically elected Government.”
After the meeting, Georgia and Turkey signed three agreements serving the economic interests of the two nations.
The Georgian Government’s administration reported that the meeting between the Prime Ministers started with discussing the recent events taking developments in Turkey, which left at least 232 people dead and 1,400 others wounded.
Herewith, the Turkish interior ministry dismissed almost 9,000 police officers on Monday as part of a purge of officials suspected of involvement in the coup attempt on July 15.
This followed the arrest of 6,000 military personnel and suspension of almost 3,000 judges over the weekend.
Speaking about the issue, Kvirikashvili stated the “preserving of stability in Turkey as well as reinforcement of existing strategic partnership between the countries is important to Georgia”.
The Prime Minister of Turkey thanked the Government of Georgia for demonstrating its support for stability in Turkey, and assessed the visit of the Georgian Prime Minister as a step towards the further development of strategic partnership between the two countries.
The pair paid particular attention to cooperation in the areas of trade and economics, as well as the transport and energy sectors.
The need for further intensification of bilateral trade and prospects of increasing Georgian exports to the Turkish market were discussed. The conversation also touched upon ongoing joint energy and transportation projects.
After the meeting, Georgia and Turkey signed several agreements that envisage strengthening their bilateral strategic partnership, such as the renewal of investment protection and promotion agreement, an agreement on international combined freight transportation, and an agreement on passenger and rail freight transportation.
Turkey has been Georgia’s strategic partner for the last 14 years, and during this time Georgia has attracted more than $1 billion in investments from Turkey, said Georgia’s Economic Minister, who accompanied the Prime Minister to Turkey with other state officials.
