Erdogan attends opening session of Rio+20

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan attended the opening session of Rio+20, United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro yesterday. Erdogan will address the Rio+20 Summit and will deliver a speech at a session entitled "Least developed countries and Rio+20" and return to Turkey on Thursday night. As part of contacts held by Erdogan, who is accompanied by Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan, Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek, Environment and Urban Planning Minister Erdogan Bayraktar, Development Minister Cevdet Yilmaz and Forestry and Water Works Minister Veysel Eroglu, the agreements aimed at increasing trade volume between the two countries will be signed. The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) which was held for the first time in Rio de Janerio in 1992 was again organized in the same city to mark its 20th anniversary. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will exert efforts to ensure that a 26-article action plan is accepted by heads of state and government attending the summit which is hosted by Brazilian President Dilma Vana Roussef. As part of his contacts in Rio, Erdogan also held separate meetings with French President Francois Hollande, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Montenegro’s Prime Minister Igor Luksic, Chilean President Sebastian Pinera and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy Brey.