Xi, Turkish president hold talks, agreeing to deepen strategic cooperation

BEIJING (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the Great Hall of the People on Tuesday, pledging more efforts to promote strategic cooperation between the two sides and work for sound bilateral ties.

Chinese President Xi Jinping holds a welcome ceremony for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan before their talks in Beijing, capital of China.                                        --Photo Xinhua

Noting China and Turkey are both major emerging markets and developing countries, Xi said enhancing strategic cooperation is of great significance.
He called on the two sides to deepen political mutual trust, beef up strategic communication, respect each other’s core interests and major concerns on issues pertaining to national sover-eignty, independence and territorial integrity, and consolidate the political foundation underlying the development of China-Turkey strategic cooperative relationship to keep bilateral ties on a healthy and stable track.
On anti-terrorism security cooperation, Xi said China appreciates Erdogan’s reiteration on many occasions about not allowing anti-China separatist activities instigated by any force in Turkey, and highly values the repeated emphasis by the Turkish side on supporting China’s anti-terrorism efforts, noting that China is ready to strengthen cooperation with Turkey in the field of international anti-terrorism.
Speaking of synergizing development strategies and expanding pragmatic cooperation, Xi called Turkey an important partner in jointly building the Belt and Road.
“China is willing to move faster in dovetailing the Belt and Road Initiative with the Middle Corridor project, steadily promote cooperation on trade, investment, science and technology, energy, infrastructure and major projects and actively seek cooperation in small and medium-sized programs and those that benefit the people, to deliver concrete benefits to more enterprises and the people,” the Chinese president said.
Xi also called for expanding people-to-people exchanges and tourism cooperation for better mutual understanding between the two peoples, to solidify the popular support for China-Turkey friendship.

(Latest Update July 4, 2019)