Ambassador Sadık Arslan, Chief Foreign Policy Adviser to the President of the Republic of Turkey reassured the guaranteed support of the Turkish leadership, the President in particular, to the development and acceleration of cooperation in the Developing Eight Organization for Economic Cooperation. He also confirmed all cooperation to the D-8 Secretary-General and the Secretariat during call on him by Dato’ Ku Jaafar Ku Shaari, the D-8 Secretary-General, on 15 February 2018 at the former’s office on the Presidential Complex in Ankara.

The two interlocutors discussed possible areas of cooperation; Mr. Arslan focused particularly on the fact that outreach to the public sector was elementary in order to expand the Organization’s activities both horizontally and vertically. D-8 opined that the D-8 could work as a ‘Diplomatic Multiplier’ by tapping the individual potentials of Member States into an accumulated potential.

They discussed the directives and visions set out by the D-8 leadership during the 9th D-8 Summit held in October last year in Istanbul, particularly the vision of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with regard to reform, expansion and action of the Organization. They agreed that equilateral contributions arising from the commitments of the Member States would help Turkey as current Chair of the Organization accelerate the pace of development in different areas of cooperation. They also laid importance on the development of technology policy, Research and Development within the D-8 region in order to create our own technological base and reduce dependency on the developed nations.

They discussed a range of issues from expansion of the membership, strengthening of the Secretariat, relocation of the premises of the Secretariat, upcoming meetings of the Commission and the Council, Secretary-General’s meeting with the D-8 leadership starting from the President of Turkey as the current Chairman of the Organization, reform process etc. The discussion was held in a very warm and friendly environment.