Turkey's Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said on Thursday that the tripartite meeting held in Baghdad on Nov.19 was very important and fruitful.
Babacan made such remarks while holding a press conference after a tete-a-tete meeting with the visiting Romanian counterpart Lazar Comanescu here in Ankara.
Attaching great importance to the tripartite meeting, Babacan said that "the meeting held with the participation of Turkish, Iraqi and U.S. officials was fruitful. The three parties reaffirmed that the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) is a terrorist organization."
"Senior Iraqi, Turkish and U.S. officials have decided to form a joint committee to combat the PKK, which has bases in Iraq," said Babacan, adding that the committee would track the threat represented by the PKK to the security and the stability of Turkey and Iraq, and would also enact forceful measures to stop all activities undertaken by PKK inside Iraqi territory or in any region adjacent to the Turkish-Iraqi border.
"In the last few months, Turkey has been fighting against the PKK by cooperating with the United States and Iraq. We hope this cooperation will go on in the future," said Babacan.
In addition, he noted that Iraqi State Minister for National Dialogue Akram al-Hakim is currently in Ankara to hold talks with Turkish officials on issues they both concerned.
Referring the bilateral relations between Turkey and Romania, Babacan said that relations with Romania are based on reciprocal understanding and sound friendship.
"Our trade volume stood at 7 billion U.S. dollars last year. This amount is about to exceed 8 billion by the end of this year," he said.
For his part, Romanian Foreign Minister Comanescue, who arrived in Ankara on Wednesday for a two-day official visit in Turkey, said that his country wanted to increase trade volume with Turkey up to 10 billion dollars in the Year 2010.
Meanwhile, he reaffirmed Romania's support to Turkey's EU membership process, saying that Turkey's accession would make important contributions to the EU.
Source:Xinhua
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