D-8 Secretary General, Seyed Ali Mohammad Mousavi, had a fruitful meeting with Mr. Ahmet Davuto?lu, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey,  on 10 December 2013, in Ankara, Turkey. During the meeting, at the outset, Mr. Mousavi presented brief information about D-8, its activities, areas of cooperation, achievements as well as challenges and future projects. He expressed his pleasure for Turkey’s support to D-8.

The meeting focused mainly on the agenda of next Council meeting in Islamabad and also next Summit to be held in Turkey in 2014. Secretary General Mousavi expressed that by the 9th Summit in 2014, D-8 will be completing the first phase of its life-cycle after the inception of the Organization in 1997. “In the upcoming Summit, the vital role of Chairman will be rotated again to the Republic of Turkey, as the initiator of the Organization, and I expect D-8 will coherently denote the shift from “policy coordination” to “project implementation” phase. This summit will be very significant to strategically devise effective ways to achieve D-8’s entire goals” he continued. 

 

Foreign Minister Davuto?lu underlined that as the founder of the initiative, the host country of the Secretariat and the upcoming chair, Turkey attributes paramount importance to cooperation within the framework of the D-8. He also highlighted that Turkey always supports the efforts of the D-8 Secretariat with a view to setting up a more institutionalized structure. “I believe that given the institutional novelties that it is expected to bring about, the 9th Summit in Turkey will be recalled as a turning point in the history of the D-8.” he said.

He shared his belief that for our economies, we, as the D-8 members, have to ensure sustainable development, industrialization, enhanced human resources, and forward-looking partnership between public and private sectors are vital. “Although geographic distances between members might be considered as a disadvantage for realizing planned activities and producing further concrete projects, D-8 countries have great potentials in economically, socially and also politically, therefore, D-8 is strong enough to overcome all these physical barriers’ he added. 

At the end of the meeting, both sides agreed that the upcoming Summit will display a major crossroads throughout the history of the Organization. This Summit will not only offer the Organization an opportunity to take stock of the achievements by now but also will provide us to assess the challenges that the Organization faces today.

Photos of this visit can be viewed form the link below :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/developing8/sets/72157638575077916/