2024-07-15 14:55:57
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud in his office in Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul, reports Anadolu Agency.
The meeting, which took place yesterday behind closed doors, was also attended by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.
Fidan and his Saudi counterpart also held bilateral talks, after which they gave a joint press conference, reports BTA.
At the briefing, Fidan pointed out that close cooperation between Turkey and Saudi Arabia, which are two important figures in the region and the Islamic world, is of great importance.
In this context, we are pleased that our relationship with Saudi Arabia has gained significant momentum over the past few years. During today’s talks, we assessed the current state of our bilateral relations and discussed opportunities to improve our cooperation in all areas, Fidan pointed out.
We would also like to restore the Turkish-Saudi Coordination Council, which we established in 2016 and whose first meeting was held in Ankara in 2017. We have just signed the protocol governing the functioning of this mechanism, the Turkish foreign minister said.
We also agreed to hold the second meeting of the Council in Riyadh this year. Our coordination council consists of five subcommittees that will cooperate in many different spheres – diplomacy, culture, trade, health care, military affairs, energy, specified Fidan.
In the past two years, relations between Ankara and Riyadh have improved significantly since the dispute with Saudi Arabia that arose after the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. The crisis in relations triggered an unofficial Saudi boycott of Turkish goods, which had caused trade to shrink by 98 percent.