With the mission to energize the ongoing cooperation in Civil Aviation sector among member countries, D-8 Secretary General, Widi Pratikto, recently paid a courtesy visit to the capital of Turkey, Ankara, to meet the D-8 Coordinator of civil aviation cooperation, the Turkish Directorate General for Civil Aviation. In the visit, Mr. Pratikto held talks with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation of Turkey, Mr Ali Ariduru, who warmly welcomed and congratulated Pratikto on his new appointment as the Secretary General of the Organization.

Since its establishment in 2007, the D-8 Working Group for Co-operation in Civil Aviation had met three times in Antalya (Turkey), Isfahan (Iran) and Bali (Indonesia). With the purpose to enable the parties to cooperate and coordinate amongst themselves as well as with ICAO and other related regional organisations and international institutions, the D-8 Civil Aviation Cooperation based its mechanism on the effeciency of a number of organs, such as the Working Group, and six Task Forces, namely: Safety and Security; Rulemaking Activities and Legal Issues; Commercial Issues; Air Navigation and Air Traffic Management; Training and Capacity Building; and Aviation Medical Licensing Standards and Communicable Diseases through Air Travel.

Eventhough the cooperation so far has resulted in the varieties of tangible cooperations among member countries, Mr. Ariduru also raised a few of his concerns to the output of cooperation, especially with regards to the completion of formalization of the MoU on Civil Aviation which so far has only been signed by Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan and Turkey. He said that as Coordinator of the Working Group, he is expecting a more active participation of the rest of member countries to enable their respective authorities contribute positively to the final outcome of each cooperation in this sector for the benefit of D-8 Community.

Mr. Pratikto acknowledged this issue, and said that he will bring this into the attention of the rest of member countries which had not signed the MoU yet, and promised to act efficiently to expedite the solution to this obstacle. D-8 Secretariat has sent reminder to the member countries in this regard, calling the respected authorities in the member countries to pay attention to the matter and enable themselves to be involved more actively in the D-8 initiatives in civil aviation cooperation sector.

Mr. Ariduru told Secretariat that his authority will be pleased to offer the next Working Group meeting to focus on Task Forces within this year, provided that there is sufficient responses from member countries to the call of Secretariat.