Davutoglu flies to Baghdad

The Foreign Affairs Turkish Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has left this morning (11th august 2009) for Baghdad, in order to keep defining some important strategic agreements. While the Turkish governement keeps declaring its optimism and its new openings about the Kurdish issue, at the same time it’s strengthening its diplomatic realations in order to confirm its role of regional power, with the moral and material support of the USA.
On the 28th of July, a trilateral meeting was held in Ankara between the Interiors Turkish Minister Besir Atalay, the Iraqi State Minister for National Security Shirvan El Vaili and the US Major General Deputy Chief of Staff for the Multinational Forces in Iraq Steven Hummer, in order to define new agreements and exchange of intelligence information for the still ongoing military plans to eliminate PKK bases in Northern Iraq. Another issue that had been dealt with was the Mahmour refugee camp, in Iraq, that since 1997 is hosting more than 10.000 Kurdish refugees from Turkey, in relatively good conditions. However, it’s considered a threat by Turkish government, that fears the strong influence exerted by PKK on the camp’s administration.

Thus, during his visit in Iraq, Davutoglu will keep on dealing with similar security issues, as the next trilateral meeting is to be held in October in Baghdad, but will also deal with much more economical issues: not by chance he’s accompanied in the visit by the Turkish Minister for Foreign Trade Zafer Caglayan. In a recent press conference, Caglayan has declared to aim to increase the Turkish trade volume with Iraq from the present 7 billion dollars up to 20 billion dollars within the end of 2011.    

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