Iran-Turkey Survey Ways To Expand Agricultural Co-op

Ankara, Nov 17, IRNA – IRI Agricultural Jihad Minister Sadeq Khalilian in a meeting with his Turkish counterpart Mehdi Ekr here Friday surveyed ways for expansion and deepening of bilateral agricultural cooperation. According to the IRNA correspondent in Ankara, the meeting took place on the sidelines of the Antalya Economic Cooperation Organization Agriculture Ministers Conference. The ECO ministerial conference is hosted by the Turkish Minister of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Food Mehdi Akr in Turkey's Black Sea tourism resort city of Antalya. In addition to the ECO agriculture ministers and other high ranking agriculture officials, representatives from the UN World Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Bank (WB), the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) and some other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and international organs are participating at the even. Khalilian and Akr in their bilateral talks on the sidelines of the ECO conference reached basic agreements on cooperation between the two major ECO countries in food security, agricultural and animal husbandry, including getting rid of agricultural crops' pests and animals' vaccination, taking advantage of both countries' experience and acquired information, and exchange of expert delegations. The Iranian Agricultural Jihad minister inviting his Turkish counterpart to visit Iran at his earlier convenient opportunity proposed that bilateral meetings were needed to activate the unused potentials for agricultural cooperation on both ends. Both sides in the meeting referred to the strong will of the Iranian and Turkish officials for increasing the volume of annual bilateral trade to 35 billion US dollars by the year 2015, expressing hope that by expanding agricultural trade the role of this sector in achieving that objective would be made more evident than before, and above the agricultural cooperation between any other two ECO members in this field. The ECO meeting which kicked off in Antalya, Turkey, Thursday will particularly focus on a wide range of issues with a particular emphasis on food security. The Iranian minister is scheduled to meet with his counterparts participating in the event. The expert-level meeting was held from November 13-14. The ECO has 10 member-states at present time. Turkey, Republic of Azerbaijan, Islamic Republic of Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan are member-states of ECO. The ECO is an intergovernmental organization involving seven Asian and three Eurasian nations, part of the South-central Asian Union. It provides a platform to discuss ways to improve development and promote trade, and investment opportunities. The ECO is an ad hoc organization under the United Nations Charter (Chap. VIII). The common objective is to establish a single market for goods and services, much like the European Union. ECO's secretariat and cultural department are located in Tehran, its economic bureau is in Turkey and its scientific bureau is situated in Pakistan. The organization's population is 416,046,863 and the area is 8,620,697 km². The organization was founded by Turkey, Iran and Pakistan./end