ANKARA — Paying the highest-level visit from Beijing to Ankara since 2021, China’s newly appointed Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s meeting with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday focused on deepening cooperation, particularly on the economy.
According to the Turkish presidency, Erdogan and Wang discussed bilateral relations between the two countries as well as international issues. Erdogan expressed his country’s desire to hold the first meeting of the High Level Working Group, which was set up to align China’s Belt and Road Initiative with Turkey’s Middle Corridor project, which aims to set up a corridor linking the country’s eastern border to the Turkic republics in Central Asia and China through the Caspian basin.
Strengthening economic and commercial ties was also a top agenda item during the meeting between Fidan and Wang, according to Turkey’s public broadcaster TRT.
Citing Turkish diplomatic sources, TRT said the two chief diplomats discussed steps to be taken to increase mutual investments and cooperation in various fields including nuclear energy, agriculture, civil aviation, culture and tourism.
