Erdogan meets with Hungarian counterpart

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is on a three-day visit to Central Europe, yesterday departed from Czech Republic and arrived in Hungary, where he met with his Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orban. After holding bilateral and delegation talks with him, Erdogan met with Hungarian President Janos Ader. The meeting at the Sandor Palace was held closed to news media. Speaking to reporters at a joint press conference with Orban, Erdogan said that preparations were being made for easier visas with Hungary and that Turkey wanted to lift all obstacles for our businesspeople, students, academicians, artists and athletes. "We have partnership with Hungary in the military and political fields. Our economic and commercial relations move forward every passing day. I believe that we can have highly important partnerships in the cultural sphere as our infrastructures are very suitable for this," Erdogan noted. "Our cooperation in the military field is known. We are together in NATO. Hungary has always been with us in our EU process. I thank Hungary on behalf of my nation and myself," Erdogan stated adding that Turkey had a trade volume of $1.7 billion in 2012 and that our target is to reach $5 billion by 2015. For his part, Orban said that Hungarian citizens should be able to visit Turkey without any visa requirements. "The highest number of tourists visiting Hungary consists of Turks, who are followed by Croatians. We would like Turkey to provide visa facilities for Hungarian citizens," Orban added.