Thaindian News

Islamabad, Mar 31 (IANS) Pakistan and Turkey agreed Wednesday to upgrade their strategic partnership and step up political and economic cooperation.
“Pakistan values its ties with Turkey and relations between both countries in the fields of education, defence, agriculture, education, energy and trade would be strengthened,” President Asif Ali Zardari said at a joint press conference with his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul.

Noting that Pakistan “values” its strategic partnership with Turkey, Zardari also urged the visiting president to set up a mechanism to ensure political, economic and defence coordination, Online news agency reported.

“We have struck agreement with Turkey in the areas of economic cooperation, agriculture and investment,” Zardari said, adding: “Both countries have strongly condemned the terrorism and extremism in strongest terms and decided to cooperate with each other for elimination of menace of terrorism.”

In this context, Zardari noted that the successful military operation in Pakistan’s tribal areas would ensure the end of terrorism and extremism.

“Pakistan and Turkey can defeat terrorism jointly,” he added.

Speaking on the occasion, Gul said Pakistan “is a very close friend of Turkey” and relations between the peoples of both countries “would be intensified”.

“Pakistan is an important country of the region and its importance cannot neglected at any cost,” Gul added.

He also said both countries were attempting to increase the volume of their trade from $2 billion to $5 billion annually.

Earlier the one-on-one meeting between the two presidents was followed by delegation-level talks.

Briefing the media about the meeting, presidential spokesperson Farhatullah Babar said that during talks President Asif Ali Zardari emphasized the need for upgrading communication links to further boost trade, commerce and people to people contacts.

He said the proposed 6,500-km Islamabad-Istanbul rail link would vastly improve regional connectivity.

A demonstration run of the Islamabad-Tehran-Istanbul container train was conducted on August 14 last year.

Speaking at a reception hosted in the visiting president’s honour, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said there was “complete consensus among the nation, the political forces and state institutions in the war against terrorism and extremism”.

“Pakistan and Turkey have common agendas and we are facing a common set of challenges,” Gilani said, adding: “We have a common responsibility to show to the world the real and true aspect of our heritage.”