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Gryshchenko has high hopes for forward-looking cooperation with Turkey
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12 May 2011
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kostyantyn Gryshchenko has expressed high hopes for deepening bilateral cooperation with Turkey, saying that a basis for a very fruitful and forward-looking cooperation between the two nations already exists.
“In a few months, we will have a meeting here in Turkey of two foreign ministers in preparation for the High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council which would be an extremely important development. We took it very seriously; there are negotiations on the free trade agreement and on the liberalization of the visa regime, all the things that will make the lives of ordinary Ukrainians and Turks much easier via simplifying the procedures and enabling them to visit both countries,” Gryshchenko said in an exclusive interview with Today's Zaman on Tuesday in Istanbul. Gryshchenko was in Istanbul on the occasion of a meeting of the Committee of Ministers (CM) of the Council of Europe's (CoE) 47 member states held Istanbul on Wednesday. At the meeting, Ukraine took over the six-month long rotating presidency of the CM from Turkey.
“Already millions of Ukrainians come to spend their summer vacations in Turkey. So, in that particular respect, tourism is also avery important area in our mutual effort to promote better understanding and friendship between the two peoples,” Gryshchenko underlined.
“So we have good perspectives, I think, we have established very friendly, very open and a very productive relationship on all levels -- between the president of Ukraine and both prime minister and president of the Republic of Turkey. Between the two foreign ministers, between our military establishments and what is more important, between thousands and thousands of major players, let’s put it, in both societies which is the basis for a very fruitful and you know, forward-looking cooperation between the two nations,” he remarked.
In January, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had talks with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in Kiev where the leaders discussed the possibilities of bilateral cooperation between the two countries at a strategic level.
In May 2010, during a visit to Kiev by Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, the two countries signed the “2010-2011 Action Plan,” aimed at developing bilateral relations, and initialed the “High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council Joint Declaration.” In the recent past, Turkey, seeking an active role in its region, established high-level strategic cooperation councils with neighboring Iraq, Greece, Russia and Syria, involving joint cabinet meetings between Turkey and each of those countries. It is preparing to establish a similar mechanism with Bulgaria too.
The foreign ministers of Turkey and Ukraine, the two countries which have both been striving to become members of the 27-nation European Union, gathered on Tuesday and Wednesday in Istanbul where the meeting of the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of the Council of Europe’s (CoE) 47 member states is being hosted.
Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Kostyantyn Gryshchenko, in an exclusive interview with Today’s Zaman, underlined on Tuesday the importance his country attaches to Turkey’s membership of the European Union as much as it does so to its own membership prospects.
Here are excerpts from the interview.
Your country is taking over the six-month rotating presidency of the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of the CoE. What are Ukraine’s priorities and are they in harmony with priorities Turkey had in the last six months?
I think that what the most important things for the Council of Europe are the human and the human rights dimensions of this particular institution. Essentially, the CoE was created to enlarge and reinforce the space of common values. In that respect, the priorities of the Turkish presidency is very much attuned toward what we would like achieve ourselves. It is essentially these particular aspects which our governments are trying to enforce.
Another important priority for us is the reformation of the CoE: First, reforms which would be aimed to enhance the effectiveness of the organization, to streamline its structures and to make sure that the priorities are very clearly defined. In that respect, we are working together with the secretary-general of the organization and they are very much interested in making sure that the visibility and importance of that particular organization will be seen as an important element of promoting the kind of values that we all believe key for the future of Europe.
Let me simply also stress that we have worked very closely with Turkey, [and] with the foreign minister of Turkey. Cooperation between our permanent missions in Strasbourg was excellent this time and we hope that this cooperation will continue during the six months where we would be at the helm of the Council of Ministers of the CoE. We see this cooperation as important because we are both outside of the European Union. But we share the goals, the approaches and the values that have united the European Union. We see many similarities in the situation where we find ourselves today.
And in that sense, insistence on the importance of acceding of the EU toward the charter of the European Court of Justice, that is an important structure of the CoE, as an important goal that we shared together with Turkey.
Speaking of the future of Europe and both of the countries’ aspirations of becoming a member of the European Union, how do you evaluate the current vulnerable situation of the EU, taking the various political crises faced by the EU regardless of its relations with Turkey or Ukraine? In this respect, why does membership of Turkey and Ukraine matter for the union itself?
That’s a very clear fact that sometimes it takes a little bit longer than it should; that both Turkey and Ukraine by being members of the union would simply enforce the global position. … Why? In today’s global economy, the centers of economic growth and of political influence lies with countries who by themselves have the economy, have the strength, which is comparable to the overall strength and economical weight of the today’s 27 countries of the European Union.
And to make sure that the union, based on European values, is the leading example to the other countries where we believe that these values are important globally. Ukraine and Turkey would make it more dynamic because the economy here is very dynamic, would bring new ideas [and] new blood into the union that now faces very serious challenges including the financial area but also in the areas of competitiveness and ability to be at the cutting edge of technological progress.
In the last year, we had serious progress in our negotiations on the association agreement with the European Union. There the major important part is a deepened comprehensive free-trade agreement. Another important element is our relationship with Russia because it is our biggest neighbor. It is the country where millions of Ukrainians live. Where we have family, cultural [and] historical ties, but also it is a very important market for Ukraine. [It is] the country and the economy where technological cooperation plays an important role. Our overall trade with Russia alone is comparable to [our] trade with all of the European Union today.
Source: Today's Szaman
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