Ankara: Erdogan and Berlusconi hold joint news conference

Recalling his tour to the EU countries had started in Rome after the general elections on November 3, 2002, Erdogan said, "our first step was Rome to accelerate Turkey’s EU full membership process. It was a very meaningful visit to me. Today, Mr. Berlusconi is the first EU Prime Minister visiting me after I have become the Prime Minister of the 59th government of Turkey. During the tete-a-tete meeting and the luncheon, we exchanged views on many issues in a very beneficial atmosphere. Today, relations between Turkey and Italy have reached a very pleasing level. We assessed steps to be taken to further improve these relations in every field. As Prime ministers of two Mediterranean countries, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy and I have similar views about bilateral relations between our countries and about international and regional issues. Very serious steps have been taken in bilateral relations in the recent years. Particularly, economic and trade relations turned into a strategical cooperation. Italy, with a trade volume of 6.3 billion U.S. dollars, broke a record, and became the second biggest trade partner of Turkey in 2002. Italy made direct investment worth of 242 million U.S. dollars in 2002 and again became number one investor as it had happened in 2001."
"We reviewed Turkish-EU relations together with Berlusconi. I am sure that his support to Turkey in this respect will continue," he stated.
Erdogan said they exchanged views about Cyprus and Iraq, noting that they also discussed overcoming difficulties between Israel and Palestine in the Middle East, adding he was pleased to see that most of the views were in parallel and they expressed readiness of Turkey to make cooperation.
Erdogan said Turkish-Italian Business Council would host dinner in honor of Berlusconi on Monday evening, adding that thus they would discuss together with the private sector representatives further improvement of relations.
Silvio Berlusconi in his part said," Italy has always supported Turkey’s European Union (EU) full membership process and will continue to do so during Italy’s EU term presidency. We have similar views on both bilateral relations and the relations between Turkey and EU. We want to make dream of great Europe true but it can be possible only with memberships of Turkey, Belarus and Russian Federation."