D-8 Secretary General, Widi Pratikto, has just recently met the Turkish Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, in his first official visit to the Turkish host to introduce himself as the new secretary general, as well as to coordinate the progress that has been taking place in the organization. Pratikto was welcomed cordially by Davutoglu, and both sides had a productive talk covering various contemporary issues in the organization, as well as the recent Abuja Summit in 4-8 July 2010 in Nigeria.

Pratikto expressed his appreciation and gratitude to his appointment as the Secretary General of D-8 and wish Turkey’s constant support to D-8 and to his leadership in the organization. He also recapped a number of developments reached in the Abuja Summit, which consisted of series of meetings in the commissioner, council, and head of states level, that was held earlier this month. In addition to that, he said, D-8 also held a Central Bank Experts and Governors meeting along the sidelines that discussed a wide range of issues from Islamic Banking, Monetary Policy and Price Stability, Micro Finance, Anti-Money laundering, Reserves Management, Development Finance, ICT, Capacity Building, as well as the role of D-8 in global affairs.

Pratikto said that these meetings had been very productive and successful that led to the Abuja Declaration at the end of the Summit. He also briefed the foreign minister, that D-8 shall be organizing an HLTO and WGCA meeting that are scheduled within a few weeks ahead.

For his part, the Turkish Foreign Minister, Davutoglu, pledged his solid and continuous support for D-8 and congratulated Widi Pratikto as the new Secretary General, resuming the post of Dipo Alam who had been assigned by the Indonesian President as the Cabinet Secretary Minister of the Republic of Indonesia earlier this year. Davutoglu emphasized that the success of D-8 Secretary General is the success of the organization, as well as the success of Turkey itself. He also underlined that D-8 Countries are major and well-respected countries within their own region, and this potentials should be thoroughly explored and capitalized. There are, he said, many rooms for improvement in order to boost the cooperation among the member countries up to their potentials.

Davutoglu said that the bilateral relations between member countries is also another part of the big picture in D-8 that should be worked on. He said that he is convinced that a deep and intense sectoral cooperation in specific areas of cooperation between member countries will undoubtedly benefit the D-8 Organization as a whole.

Davutoglu also touched two important points of the discussion and review of the D-8 Charter, and the sectoral cooperation among member countries in the D-8. He also underlined Turkey’s commitment to speed up the ratification process of the Head Quarter Agreement and pledged his full support should there be any other ad-hoc issue that are standing in the way of the D-8.