Press Release from President Erdogan after the 7th Meeting of the Pakistan-Turkey High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council

 

Today, we met with my precious brother Prime Minister Shahb Dec Sharif in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, and held our 7th meeting of the High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council. 🇹🇷🇵🇰 I was happy to visit Pakistan, which we consider our second home. At our meeting, we agreed on the point of strengthening our relations even more. Within this framework, 24 documents were signed in the fields of trade, water resources, agriculture, energy, culture, family and social services, science, banking, education, defense and health. We agree with Mr. Prime Minister to increase our work in order to reach our trade volume target of $ 5 billion. For this purpose, at the first stage, we considered expanding the scope of our existing Goods Trade Agreement. We have seen that our military dialogue and defense industry cooperation have increased our trade and investment relations with a multiplier effect. We have confirmed our will to advance the projects we are carrying out with Pakistan, including procurement, sales and joint production. Another indicator of the exceptional relations between Turkey and Pakistan is our solidarity in the most difficult times.Dec. After the February 6 earthquakes, which we call the disaster of the century, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif became the first leader to visit the earthquake zone. I once again express my heartfelt gratitude to the people of Pakistan for this solidarity that we will never forget. We appreciate Pakistan's great sacrifices in the fight against terrorism and threats to regional stability. We reiterate our support to Pakistan in its fight against all forms of terrorism. We also feel the strong support of Pakistan in our fight against all types of terrorism, including YPG/PKK, DAESH and FETÖ. Our state and nation are in solidarity with our Kashmiri brothers and sisters today as they were yesterday. As Turkey, our support for the resolution of the Kashmir problem through dialogue, on the basis of United Nations resolutions and taking into account the expectations of our Kashmiri brothers and sisters remains. We are striving to give the necessary support to the just causes of our Palestinian brothers and sisters both at the UN, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and other platforms with Pakistan. We will fight patiently for the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state with geographical integrity, with East Jerusalem as its capital, on the basis of the 1967 borders.