RIYADH, 18 February 2007 — Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah held talks here yesterday with visiting Turkish Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul on major regional issues with focus on Palestine. The talks were also attended by Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal.
Earlier, King Abdullah received a telephone call from Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and discussed major regional and international issues, especially those related to the Middle East. The two leaders also explored ways of strengthening bilateral relations, the Saudi Press Agency said.
Prince Saud and Gul earlier held separate talks and called for efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Gul said his meeting with Prince Saud constituted a follow-up on talks in Ankara between Saudi and Turkish officials as well as President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan earlier this month.
“Gul’s visit to Riyadh is significant keeping in view the official tour of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to Ankara early this week and his approval of a proposed Turkish inspection of construction work near Al-Aqsa Mosque, which sparked violent Palestinian protests and angered Muslims across the world,” a Turkish official said.
Naci Koru, the Turkish ambassador to the Kingdom, said, “Gul’s talks covered regional subjects with special reference to the Middle East peace process.”
The talks between Saudi and Turkish officials were held within the framework of a Memorandum of Understanding, which was signed during King Abdullah’s visit to Turkey in August last year.
Referring to his talks in Riyadh, Gul said, “Peace in Palestine would have a positive impact on all problems in the Middle East.” He further noted that Turkey had lent support to a proposal by President Musharraf to form a group of Muslim countries that would work toward peace in the Middle East.
Turkey, a mainly Muslim but secular non-Arab nation, has close ties both with the Jewish state and the Palestinians and has often offered to help efforts to bring the two sides closer.
Gul said his talks also covered the turmoil in Iraq and other issues of mutual interest. The visit of the Turkish foreign minister, or for that matter frequent visits of senior Turkish leaders to the Kingdom, can also be seen as an example of Turkey shifting its foreign policy focus from the EU to the Middle East, which can eventually lend more emphasis on political and economic engagement.
The two countries have forged closer relations on the commercial front. Two-way trade between the Kingdom and Turkey has been in the region of $3 billion with oil and petroleum products constituting almost 75 percent of Turkish imports from Saudi Arabia.
Some well-known Turkish construction companies are active in the Gulf region and the total value of the projects currently being handled by the Turkish companies in Saudi Arabia exceeds $30 billion.
