In These New Times

Today’s Zaman

8th June, 2010

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has said Turkey, Afghanistan and Pakistan would make efforts to hold a meeting of the İstanbul Forum involving businesspeople from the three countries in Kabul.

At a press conference following a tripartite meeting on Monday with Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmay Rassoul and Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi at the Çırağan Palace in İstanbul as part of the Third Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA), Davutoğlu said they wanted to contribute to establishing normality in Afghanistan by showing that Kabul was not a city in which only security meetings took place but also a city in which economic meetings can be held.

Davutoğlu added that the Foreign Ministry would be in touch with the Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges (TOBB) and will work towards setting up a meeting of businesspeople in Kabul.

“The speech delivered by Afghan President Hamid Karzai during his oath-taking ceremony was an indication of a new era in Afghanistan. The tripartite mechanism, regional summits and international meetings all show that support for Afghanistan is on the rise,” Davutoğlu said.

With regard to the future of Afghanistan, Davutoğlu said a tripartite working group formed by the undersecretaries of the three ministries would get together and discuss what could be done prior to an international meeting in Kabul on July 20.

“Mr. Qureshi and I will attend the Kabul conference on July 20. Around 60 foreign ministers have been invited to the meeting. We are ready to provide support to Afghanistan to ensure the success of this meeting,” Davutoğlu said.

The next tripartite meeting is planned to take place in January, 2011.

Regarding Israel’s attack on ships carrying aid to Gaza last week, Qureshi said Pakistan strongly condemned the attack. “We are with Turkey. We believe that such an attack was unacceptable,” Qureshi said.