Bulgarian President Parvanov to start two-day visit to Turkey today

Georgi Parvanov

Bulgarian President Parvanov to start two-day visit to Turkey today Georgi Parvanov Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov is scheduled to arrive in the Turkish capital today for a two-day official visit at the invitation of his counterpart, Abdullah Gül. The two presidents will discuss regional and international affairs in addition to bilateral relations during their meeting today, the Çankaya presidential press office said yesterday in a statement. Parvanov will travel to the central Anatolian province of Kayseri on the second day of his visit, when he will attend a meeting of the Turkish-Bulgarian Business Council, the statement said, without elaborating on whether Gül would accompany the visiting president during his visit to Kayseri, which is Gül's hometown. In recent years, Kayseri, with a dynamic entrepreneurship capacity, has been a center of interest for foreign official visitors. In October 2005, only days after formal launching of accession negotiations between Turkey and the EU, EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn also paid a visit to Kayseri. At the time, Rehn described the city as the heartland of Turkey. In March 2007, as part of a landmark state visit to Turkey, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands also traveled to Kayseri, where many of the 350,000-strong Turkish community in the Netherlands have their roots. The Çankaya statement highlighted that the bilateral economic relations of the two neighbors have been growing rapidly, with annual trade volume reaching $4 billion by the end of 2007.

16 December 2008,Tuesday

TODAY'S ZAMAN ANKARA