Saleh in Turkey, Germany to promote economic, diplomatic ties

Saba
By: Adel al-Salwi Translated by: Yahya Arhab SANA’A, Feb. 23 (Saba) – President Ali Abdullah Saleh is set to begin next Monday his first official two-day visit to Turkey to hold talks with his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul on a set of issues and means to promote and expand the areas of cooperation between the two brotherly countries. Undersecretary of Planning and International Cooperation Ministry Hisham Sharaf Abdullah said that President Saleh’s visit was prepared well where the two countries would sign six agreements, memoranda of understanding and cooperation protocols. “Yemen and Turkey are to sign a cooperation agreement in the area of aviation and renovate a cooperation accord in the field of public health as well as the signing of a memorandum of understanding for agricultural cooperation between the two countries and two cooperation protocols among the Yemeni and Turkish Foreign Ministries, Yemen’s Planning and International Cooperation Ministry and The Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency (TIKA) will be signed in addition to a protocol of exchanging digital documents and manuscripts will also be signed in the Turkish capital Ankara by the two Culture Ministries of both countries”, Sharaf said to Saba. Sharaf made it clear that Saleh and Gul would attend a joint meeting of Yemeni and Turkish businessmen who would discuss and review investment opportunities available in Yemen and Turkey and the ways to enhance cooperation between the two countries in the fields of trade and investment. President Saleh’s forthcoming visit to Ankara is an important additional step in the framework of Yemen’s consistent diplomatic policy calling for a greater closeness and openness in the Arab-Turkish relations and benefit from the recent political changes in the former Ottoman Empire to hearten Ankara, which have military relations with Israel, to have more of rapprochement with the Arab and Islamic states. It is expected the visit will create qualitatively a new stage of the Yemeni-Turkish relations to promote the current aspects of cooperation and future prospects between the two countries, particularly increasing the volume of trade exchanges and encouraging joint investments as well as expanding the existing level of cooperation in the fields of agriculture, culture and health. The Yemeni-Turkish relations have witnessed a continuous growth over last five years, particularly after the first visit of Turkey Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Sana’a in October 2005, where the two countries signed three memos f cooperation included the areas of preventing double taxation, protecting environment and cooperation in petroleum activities in addition to signing a memo of understanding to set up a Yemeni-Turkish businessmen council and launching an aerial navigation links the two capitals of both countries to facilitate the transportation of visitors and goods to both countries. At the conclusion of the 3rd meeting of the Yemeni-Turkish Joint Committee held September 2005 in Ankara, the two countries signed four cooperation agreements in the fields of tourism, youth and sport and promoting exports as well as increasing cooperation in the fields of oil, gas and minerals. For security affairs, Yemeni and Turkish security services signed an agreement for security cooperation in May 2005. Germany will be his second trip after Turkey, where President Saleh will hold official talks on 27 February with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and senior German officials on raising the German support offered to Yemen’s development projects and strengthening political relations between the two countries. Addition to Saleh’s talks with the German officials in Berlin, a joint meeting between businessmen of both friendly countries will be held to review investment opportunities available in Yemen within the interests of major German trade and investment firms to get acquiring with these opportunities. In 2007, Germany announced raising the annual developmental support for Yemen to €73 million, including financial €50 million aids and technical €32 million aids. Since it launched support for Yemen in 1969 until 1999, Berlin’s assistances to Yemen reached 1.234 billion mark, including 784 million had been allocated for financing services projects and developmental programs and 450 million for financing technical advisories and experts. For reducing poor conditions and external debt of the country, in 1997 Germany provided 196 million mark to Yemen and in 2000 it supplied an additional 13 million mark support. Promoting the level of the Yemeni-German relations, Berlin decided in 2001 to join Yemen along with four other developing countries to its program to reduce poverty rates in half by 2015 which enabled Yemen to receive an additional support in the amount of € 13 million. The annual meeting of the two counties in 2003 came out the signing of an agreement to raise the German aids for the country to €36 million and providing additional allocations of €4 million in the framework of poverty alleviation program. During 2002-2003, Berlin submitted the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) $450,000 to support the program of cleaning landmines in Yemen and provided a group of trained police dogs to field teams working for Yemen National Mine Action Committee, allocating a $500 million budget for the field operations of the program.