Statement by the President of Montenegro Milo Đukanović after the meeting with the President of the Republic of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
We transmit the statement in its entirety
During my stay at the Summit of the Cooperation Process in Southeast Europe, I also had a bilateral conversation with the President of the Republic of Turkey, Mr. Erdogan.
It was an opportunity to mutually confirm the traditionally friendly relations between the two countries and to also express our satisfaction with the partnership cooperation within NATO and common European aspirations. This was certainly an opportunity to summarize our relationships so far. Together we stated that we have a very frequent high-level political dialogue and that the next step is the visit of President Erdogan to Montenegro, which was announced earlier but postponed for various objective reasons, which will be an opportunity to discuss concrete contents for improving our interstate cooperation. in the field of economics.
Turkish investors are already present in Montenegro, both large ones and a large number of those who are there with some family entrepreneurial initiatives and we believe that within the development program of the state of Montenegro, primarily in infrastructure but also in energy, tourism and processing industry has a lot of room for foreign investors, including Turkish investors.
In addition, of course, we also discussed political issues. We exchanged views on what the common European aspirations are.
During yesterday's talks at the Summit, not only on our part, but also on the part of the EU High Representative for Security and Foreign Policy, the statement was repeated that the process of consolidation of Europe will not be finished until this part of Europe is integrated into the EU. I consider it a valuable announcement not only in the Western Balkans but also in Turkey, it was naturally the topic of our conversation. In addition, Turkey is continuously showing interest in intensifying cooperation with our region as a whole, so today we heard the initiative by President Erdogan to institutionalize a new forum that will be Turkish-Balkan and will sit in Istanbul, and took the opportunity to hear my opinion on this topic, which is of course welcomed by me, and I believe that it will also contribute to our internal, regional better economic integration and connections with other countries.
Turkey is one of the countries that has exceptional economic potential and which can always contribute to the well-being of any national economy or regional economy, in this case, the Western Balkans, by the presence of its investors and the intensification of foreign trade.