Georgian Foreign Minister Darchiashvili Meets Turkish Counterpart Hakan Fidan
By Liza Mchedlidze
Friday, February 16, 2024
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, Ilia Darchiashvili, paid an official visit to the Republic of Türkiye. During the visit, Darchiashvili held a bilateral meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Türkiye, Hakan Fidan.
Georgian Foreign Minister Ilia Darchiashvili stated at a press briefing that discussions included exchanging opinions and making plans for future cooperation. Darchiashvili emphasized the significance of high-level visits to enhance ties between Georgia and Türkiye, and both parties agreed to work on organizing visits, including the President of Türkiye visiting Georgia and the Prime Minister of Georgia visiting Türkiye.
"Today, both face-to-face and during the meeting with the extended composition of the delegations, we discussed extremely important issues of the dynamic agenda between our countries. We exchanged opinions and set plans for future cooperation. We emphasized the need for high-level visits and agreed to continue working to organize visits, including those of the President of Türkiye to Georgia and the Prime Minister of Georgia to Türkiye," said Darchiashvili.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan remarked that bilateral relations between Georgia and Türkiye are developing excellently. He added that political, economic, cultural, and people-to-people relations between the two countries are at the highest level.
It should be noted that we have close cooperation in the fields of energy and transport. I would like to emphasize that our bilateral relations are developing excellently. Political, economic, cultural, and people-to-people relations between the two countries are at the highest level.
At the meeting with my Georgian colleague, we welcomed the positive dynamics of economic and trade relations between the two countries. During the last 15 years, the Republic of Türkiye has been the largest trade partner for Georgia. Last year, the trade turnover increased to three billion dollars, and thus we reached the set goal.
Currently, our goal is to increase the trade turnover to five billion dollars. We also talked about this topic," Hakan Fidan stated.
Fidan also discussed ongoing processes in Abkhazia and Tskhinvali/South Ossetia regions during a meeting with the Georgian Minister of Foreign Affairs. According to the Turkish Foreign Minister, they reiterated support for peaceful conflict resolution, emphasizing Turkey's commitment to Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized framework. They also discussed Turkey's role in the conflict resolution process.
