President Erdoğan: We will maintain our support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, including Crimea
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine held a joint press conference in Kyiv following their meeting.
Expressing Turkey’s appreciation for Ukraine’s ongoing reform process led by President Zelensky, President Erdoğan said: “My esteemed friend, we share and support your vision of a strong and modern Ukraine. Let me once again underline that we, as Turkey, don’t recognize the unlawful annexation of Crimea. I would like to reiterate that we will maintain our support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, including Crimea. We hope the situation in the east of the country will be resolved by peaceful and diplomatic methods on the basis of international law and Ukraine’s territorial integrity as soon as possible.”
Stressing Turkey’s support for the efforts aimed at ending the humanitarian crisis in the region, President Erdoğan noted that Turkey would continue to do everything in its power for peace and stability in the region and for the wellbeing of the Ukrainian people.
“I BELIEVE WE WILL INCREASE OUR BILATERAL TRADE TO $10 BILLION BY 2023”
As regards his meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Zelensky prior to the press conference, President Erdoğan said they had very productive talks in the areas of politics, economy, trade, tourism, military and culture.
“We have decided to finalize by the end of this year the negotiations for free trade agreement as the two strategic partners that have a total population of more than 120 million,” said President Erdoğan, and continued: “I believe that with the signing of the agreement, we will achieve much more swiftly our goal to increase our bilateral trade from $5billion to around $10 billion by 2023. Likewise, the Trade and Economic Cooperation Commission is set to hold its next meeting in March.”
Praising the level of cooperation in tourism, President Erdoğan stated: “We had first lifted visas between our countries. Then, we introduced the freedom to travel with ID cards. As a result, over 1.5 million Ukrainian citizens visited Turkey and over 217 thousand Turkish citizens visited Ukraine in 2019.”
Drawing attention to the growing cooperation in defense industry between the two countries, President Erdoğan stated: “We held the 7th Meeting of Defense Industry Cooperation in Kyiv on January 22-23, 2020. We have enhanced our cooperation in defense industry through joint production and exports to third countries.”
