The Vice President of Turkey came on an official visit to Romania and met with Marcel Ciolacu

The Vice President of Turkey, Cevdet Yilmaz, visiting Romania, said that the two countries must cooperate closely for regional security. The Turkish official met with Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu at the Victoria Palace.

Cevdet Yilmaz held a joint press statement with Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu. The high Turkish official mentioned the current demining agreement signed by Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey.

“To ensure security at the Black Sea, we are two riparian countries that are obliged to work and cooperate also because of the alliance we have.

From the beginning of the war until the present time, we worked together with our Romanian and Bulgarian allies in the working group for measures against drifting mines from the Black Sea.

It was planned to start these joint activities as soon as possible”, said Cevdet Yilmaz, according to the official translation.

He also mentioned his country’s involvement in the context of Russian aggression against Ukraine.

“Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Turkey has fought a lot to stop the war, to ensure basic global security, for the safety of navigation in the Black Sea, and we will continue to work in this field, thanks to the Black Sea Straits Convention, which ensures us let’s assume great importance for ensuring security in this area, to decrease the tension in the area and for ensuring the security of our area”, declared Cevdet Yilmaz.

At the same time, the vice president of Turkey spoke about the regional security situation. “We are on the side of peace, stability in our area,” he continued.

Cevdet Yilmaz said that he will participate, on Friday, in the inauguration of the natural gas transport pipeline between Tuzla and Podisor. “This project is also for the benefit of Romania, but also at the same time for the benefit, from the point of view of energy, of the European Union”, he appreciated.

In his intervention from the government, Cevdet Yilmaz recalled that, last week, the presidents of Romania and Turkey had a telephone dialogue, during which “they discussed very fruitfully about our bilateral relations and regional topics”.

He also thanked Romania for supporting his country’s accession to the European Union and for the strategic partnership between the two states.

“Mutual trust between our states is the basis of bilateral relations”, said the vice president of Turkey. In this sense, he also mentioned the air police mission carried out by Turkey in Romania, under the umbrella of NATO.

Regarding economic exchanges, Cevdet Yilmaz said that our country is Turkey’s largest trade partner in the EU and that the target of 10 billion dollars in terms of trade exchange has been exceeded for two years in a row.

The vice-president of Turkey will be received, on Friday evening, by the president Klaus Iohannis at the Cotroceni Palace.

Ciolacu: Economic cooperation with Turkey, one of the basic pillars of Turkish-Romanian relations

Turkey is the main commercial partner of Romania outside the European Union and the first destination outside the EU of Romanian exports, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said on Friday, after the meeting with the Turkish Vice President, Cevdet Yilmaz.

He specified that the discussions with the Turkish official also covered the current security context, the optimal ways of cooperation bilaterally and as allies within NATO.

“We had an extremely constructive discussion that confirmed the excellent state of the bilateral strategic partnership. We propose to focus on intensifying the dialogue, both on the political level, but especially on the economic level, all the more so since the Turkish-Tatar minority in Romania has a particularly important role in strengthening our relations, being a sustainable bridge between the two countries and peoples.

Politically, we discussed the perspective of launching the high-level strategic cooperation council between Romania and Turkey, which will basically follow the format of joint government meetings. Thus, we will be able to decide the key priorities in the strategic areas of interest for both states”, said Ciolacu, in a joint statement with Yilmaz.

Ciolacu emphasized that the development of economic cooperation represents “one of the basic pillars” of the relations between the two countries.

“We welcomed the solid growth of bilateral trade in recent years. Turkey is Romania’s main commercial partner outside the European Union and the first non-EU destination of Romanian exports.

We also have very good figures for last year when bilateral trade exceeded the 10 billion dollar threshold. We want this growth trend to continue,” added the prime minister.

Marcel Ciolacu mentioned the cooperation between the two states in the fields of energy, transport, agriculture, defense industry, agri-food, processing.

“At the same time, I consider it a priority to act in terms of encouraging investments in the Romanian economy. We already have collaborative projects with Turkish entrepreneurs in various stages of implementation. Among these, I would mention the Black Sea – Podisor natural gas transport pipeline, a strategic project for Romania, but also for the entire region”, said Ciolacu.

He stated that the discussions with the Turkish official also focused on the current security context and the optimal ways of cooperation, both bilaterally and as allies within NATO, in order to ensure security in the Black Sea and good coordination on the eastern flank of Alliance.

“I thanked Mr. Vice-President for Turkey’s participation in NATO air police missions on Romanian territory, which significantly contributes to the efforts to strengthen the allied defense and deterrence position on NATO’s eastern flank.

I also emphasized the importance of the Black Sea Romania-Turkey-Bulgaria demining naval group in the current security context, a concrete example of how we can cooperate to ensure security in the Black Sea region”, added Marcel Ciolacu.

Also, Ciolacu specified that he discussed with Yilmaz about the security situation and the implications of the illegal and unprovoked war that Russia launched against Ukraine.

“I reaffirmed Romania’s support for the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, but I also spoke about the reconstruction process of Ukraine.

In this context, we also discussed the situation in the Republic of Moldova in the current conjuncture and pleaded for maintaining solid support in Chisinau’s efforts to resist the hybrid pressures aimed at inducing misinformation of the population in order to directly affect its stability”, added the Prime Minister .

Romania considers that Turkey is a candidate country and a key partner of the European Union, Ciolacu also said. “For Romania, it is important to strengthen the cooperation between the European Union and Turkey in the sectoral areas of interest”, he also said.

Also, the two officials expressed their concern about the risk of the conflict expanding to a regional level in the Middle East.

“I reiterated the condemnation of the Iranian attack on Israel, as well as Romania’s support for international initiatives aimed at solving the crisis in the Gaza Strip and improving the situation of civilians in the enclave. In the same sense, I also supported the need to ensure freedom of navigation in the Red Sea”, added the Romanian Prime Minister.

Editor: Adrian Dumitru

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