Friday, 16 October 2009
The Turkish prime minister defined on Thursday the report on the progress made by Turkey on road to the European Union (EU) as the best since his party came to the ruling.
Turkey's Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that this year's progress report was the most ideal one since the Justice & Development (AK) Party started governing the country.
"In my opinion, it is a well-thought, very well and well-examined progress report," he told reporters on his way back from Iraq to Turkey.
Also, Erdogan referred to his visit to Iraq and said that Turkey was planning to open a consulate in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil.
"Ministers and businessmen will go to the north of Iraq in coming days," he said.
Erdogan said this step would be the beginning of a new process in countering terrorism.
The premier said the security agreement signed between Turkey and Iraq envisaged a common stance on fight against terrorism within the framework of international law and in respect to each other's territorial integrity.
Also, Erdogan defined the decision of the United States to declare three top members of the terrorist organization PKK as drug traffickers and freeze their assets as an important development.
Erdogan also said the primary step was to prevent terrorists to climb to mountains, and the secondary was to encourage them to come down from the mountains.
Prime Minister Erdogan paid one-day visit to Iraq on Thursday, and met vice president Adil Abd al-Mahdi and Tariq al-Hashimi of Iraq, Iraqi Premier Nuri al-Maliki, and Iraqi Parliament Speaker Ayad al-Samarraie in Baghdad.
Turkish and Iraqi officials signed several memoranda of understanding on many areas from security to energy.
