Bilateral relations, global situation discussed: Gilani meets Turkish Prime Minister

Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani and his Turkish counterpart Recap Tayyip Erdogan met here on Monday on the sidelines of second Nuclear Security Summit and discussed bilateral relations, regional and international situation and agreed to further promote trade and economic relations between the two countries.
The Turkish Prime Minister said Turkey is interested to invest in various projects in the field of energy and communication. He informed Prime Minister Gilani that there is wide scope for Turkish investors on different projects in hydel, thermal and renewable energy and other development projects especially in Balochistan. Referring to bilateral trade, the Turkish side informed that during 2011 trade balance remained in favour of Pakistan. The Turkish Prime Minister said a Turkish firm Zorlu is investing for 50MW power project in Jhimper in windmill. He said there would be more investment in energy sector from Turkey.
Prime Minister Gilani while appreciating the Turkish investment in various projects in Pakistan also emphasised the need for early completion of motorway projects especially from Gwadar to Nishtar Ghat and Karachi to Hyderabad to improve connectivity as it is important to improve development activities. Gilani also emphasised the need for promoting the activities of Joint Economic Commission so that the trade activities could be improved to utilise the potential available in different sectors. He also highlighted the issue of continuation of preferential treatment on textile to Turkey and his Turkish counterpart agreed to look into it.
The Prime Minister also explained some of the details of recently concluded Senate elections in Pakistan adding that PPP emerged a single largest party in these elections and with the help of coalition partners the PPP has now two third majority in the Upper House.
He said although the government faced many challenges but resolving them through the policy of reconciliation and taking along all the political parties. Gilani also expressed sympathies and condolences with Turkish Prime Minister on the loss of 12 Turkish soldiers during a helicopter crash in Afghanistan. The Prime Minister said Pakistan is strongly committed to deepen, broader and strengthen its unique and strategic partnership with Turkey in every field. He said Pakistan is looking forward to welcoming Prime Minister Erdogan to Pakistan later this year to chair the second session of this High Level Co-operation Council.
Referring to Pak-Turkish trade, Prime Minister Gilani said the level of bilateral trade and investment remains far below the real potential and emphasised the need to increase the bilateral trade to US dollars two billion by the year 2012 from the current level of one billion dollars.
Prime Minister Gilani said the signing of an agreement on currency swap arrangements is an important step in trade facilitation and added that there is need to work on fast track on Pak-Turkey Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA). Gilani said: "We would welcome Turkish investment in hydro-power generation, alternate energy projects." Highlighting importance of co-operation in education sector between the two countries, the Prime Minister said Pakistani universities are ready to establish "Techno-Parks" in Pakistan in collaboration with the Turkish universities.
Turkish Prime Minister while referring to his meeting with US President Obama said that they discussed the regional situation of Asia especially in the context of Afghanistan. Prime Minister Gilani appreciated the efforts of Turkey for hosting trilateral summit in Istanbul on Afghanistan issue while the Turkish Prime Minister acknowledge the efforts and contribution of Pakistan for hosting a trilateral on the same subject with Afghanistan and Iran. Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar and other officials were also present in this meeting.